Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

ANGLE ORE AND TRANSPORT COMPANY BILL [Lords]

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

Oral Answers to Questions — CAMEROONS

Constitution

Mr. Tilney: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what choices the people of the Southern British Cameroons will be given in any plebiscite to determine their future that may be held in the immediate future; and whether he will include amongst those alternatives the opportunity to defer their long-term decision for another few years.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd): This matter is now under consideration in the United Nations General Assembly, and I cannot anticipate the result of these deliberations.

Mr. Tilney: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that freedom of choice exercised too hurriedly may lead to bondage later on?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes; I am sure that the people ought not to be asked to vote on choices which they have not as yet fully understood.

Oral Answers to Questions — SIERRA LEONE

Development

Mr. Tilney: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) in view of the numbers recently engaged in illicit diamond mining, what steps the Government of Sierra Leone are taking to

increase the opportunities for employment in the Colony;
(2) what schemes of development have been planned for the Kono area of Sierra Leone.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Julian Amery): The Sierra Leone Government cannot, at present, afford to start large new schemes outside the diamond areas to employ those who have been mining diamonds illicitly. However, a special plan of development for the Kono area has been approved by the Sierra Leone Government. £88,000 is to be spent on it in the year ending on 31st March, and a further £100,000 has been allocated for next year. The works to be carried out by the Central Government include improved road communications, water and electricity supplies, two new schools, a hospital and a number of health centres.

Mr. Tilney: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the importance of agriculture for the economy of a country like Sierra Leone, especially the plantation system, whether on a co-operative or a company basis?

Mr. Amery: Yes, Sir.

Mr. J. Johnson: Why is it that when Kono men are excluded from their own country, so to speak, from the district where they were born, for alleged illicit diamond mining, they are not allowed to appeal to the Supreme Court about the decision of the local magistrate or whoever it may be?

Mr. Amery: I think that is an important point. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put down a Question.

Diamond Mining

Mr. W. Griffiths: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what decision has been reached by the Government of Sierra Leone on the recent suggestion of the People's National Party that an all-party Parliamentary commission of inquiry should be sent to Kono to investigate the troubles in the diamond mining area.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The view of the Sierra Leone Government is that the improved position in Kono does not warrant the appointment of a Parliamentary commission of inquiry.

Mr. Griffiths: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the people who live in this district and have lived there all their lives are being deported in large numbers and that their property is being confiscated? Surely this is not a situation likely to bring tranquillity to the worst trouble spot in Sierra Leone? Will not the right hon. Gentleman make representations to the Sierra Leone Government?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: It is, of course, the movement of strangers which is causing the difficulty, and I would call the attention of the hon. Member to what was said on 5th February.

Mr. W. Griffiths: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies when cooperative diamond mining will be started in the Lower Bambara Chiefdom in Sierra Leone; and what have been the results of the co-operative pilot study recently started in Kono.

Mr. J. Amery: The timing of the scheme in Bambara depends upon the outcome of the similar scheme in Kono. It is too early as yet to assess the results of this.

Mr. Griffiths: Has the Minister any information as to the progress of the Kono scheme?

Mr. Amery: No, not at the moment.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOMALILAND

Constitution

Mr. Albu: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies to what extent, in framing his new policy for Somaliland, he took as his criterion the interests of the people of the Protectorate.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The interests of the people of the Protectorate were obviously my main consideration.

Mr. Albu: Will the Secretary of State draw the attention of his colleagues in the Foreign Office to the long established principle of the paramountcy of the interests of the local inhabitants in the British Colonies?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: If the hon. Gentleman is referring to a question previously put to one of my hon. Friends in the Foreign Office, that concerned a different question about a possible union of all areas occupied by Somalis.

Oral Answers to Questions — HONG KONG

Airport (Development)

Mr. du Cann: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what progress has been made in extending the runway at Hong Kong airport and providing navigational aids and new terminal buildings.

Mr. J. Amery: The new runway was opened on 12th September last. A 600-foot extension, bringing the total Lmgth to 8,350 feet, together with ancillary taxiway and aircraft park ramps, is to he completed in June. New navigational aids including P.A.R. (Precision Approach Radar), V.O.R. (Very high frequency omni-directional radio range), I.L.S. (Instrument Landing System), Approach Radar, Long Range Radar and lighting system will be installed between May, 1959, and April, 1960. Completion of the new terminal building is forecast for early 1961.

Mr. du Cann: Does not my hon. Friend agree that this is a very remarkable piece of enterprise which should bring great benefit to the Colony, and do not all those concerned in its planning and execution merit warm congratulation?

Mr. Amery: Yes, I agree.

Oral Answers to Questions — MALTA

Governor's Council

Sir P. Agnew: asked the Secretary at State for the Colonies how free the Governor of Malta will be, under the new arrangements for direct rule, to invite to serve on the Governor's Council persons with experience in political and public life in Malta, even though they may not be representative of labour, commerce or the professions.

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will now state the names of the Maltese members of the projected Council for Malta; and what representative qualifications they possess.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: It is intended that the new arrangements should give the Governor discretion to invite to serve on his Council those persons he considers best qualified. I cannot yet give names.

Sir P. Agnew: Is it to be taken from that reply that people with experience


in public and political life will not be excluded from receiving invitations even though they have not the other qualifications mentioned?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Certainly.

Mr. Brockway: Has the right hon. Gentleman yet succeeded in finding any representative Maltese person prepared to serve upon this utterly dictatorial Council?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I do not, of course, accept the hon. Gentleman's description of the Council. The Governor is not yet ready to issue invitations.

Deep-Water Harbour (Tenders)

Sir A. V. Harvey: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies on what basis the contract was given to the Royal Netherlands Harbour Works Limited for the construction of a new deep-water wharf to be built at Malta; and how the British tenders compared with the one accepted.

Mr. J. Amery: Tenders for the construction of a deep-water harbour were invited on the basis of open competitive bidding. That of the Royal Netherlands Harbour Works Limited was accepted on the recommendation of a United Kingdom firm of consulting engineers. The lowest British tender was about £89,000 more.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Will my hon. Friend say whether it is the policy to accept the lowest tender? Will he bear in mind that it is unfortunate that, with all the millions of British taxpayers' money going into Malta, this business has been given by contract to continental firms at a time when British firms badly needed work?

Mr. Amery: The award of the contract was made by the Malta Government, and it has not been the policy of Her Majesty's Government to make financial aid to a territory dependent on the award of contracts to British firms.

Oral Answers to Questions — WEST INDIES

Exhibition, Bruton Street

Mr. John Hall: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies when the West Indies Permanent Exhibition was opened in Bruton Street; how many people have visited it since that date; and what steps he is taking to prepare a traveling

exhibition on the same lines which would be available to schools in this country.

Mr. J. Amery: The Exhibition is the responsibility of the Commissioner for the West Indies, British Guiana and British Honduras. It was opened on 19th January, but no count has been kept of the numerous visitors. I understand that the Commissioner has no present plans for a travelling exhibition on these lines.
An Exhibition on the British Caribbean produced by the Commonwealth Institute has, with the co-operation of the Central Office of Information, been touring the United Kingdom since January, 1957.

Mr. Hall: Does not my hon. Friend agree that this Exhibition, though small, is very interesting and deserves the widest possible audience? In view of the lamentable ignorance about the British Commonwealth throughout the country, will he do his best to encourage the sponsoring and development of travelling exhibitions such as I have mentioned in my Question?

Mr. Amery: In answer to the first part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, I have done my best to encourage the exhibition by attending its inauguration. I entirely agree with the second part of his supplementary question.

Fruit Industry

Mr. Royle: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if, in view of fruit licensing restrictions by the New Zealand Government and the difficulties which may be caused by the European Common Market for the West Indies fruit industry, he will take steps to encourage larger importations of West Indies fruit into the United Kingdom.

Mr. J. Amery: We are always anxious to encourage the West Indian fruit industry, and, as the hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware, the United Kingdom already takes over 95 per cent. of all exports of fruit from the West Indies.

Mr. Royle: Can the hon. Gentleman say what the Government have in mind in regard to a long-term contract for citrus fruits from the West Indies?

Mr. Amery: There are many different views in the West Indies as well as here at home on the value of long-term contracts. I have found many producers who do not agree that they invariably benefit from them.

Medical Posts (Recruitment)

Mr. Blenkinsop: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what medical posts in the British West Indies calling for recruitment from Great Britain remain unfilled at the latest available date.

Mr. J. Amery: Vacancies number 32; and six candidates have so far been selected against them. With permission, I will circulate details in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Is the Under-Secretary aware that there is very great anxiety about the lack of recruits coming forward, and would he not do something both to review the financial terms of the appointments and also look at the possibility of joining the Colonial Medical Service in some way with our own National Health Service in order to give some greater sense of security to those who apply?

Mr. Amery: I will certainly look into the hon. Gentleman's proposal.

Mr. Tilney: Would my hon. Friend bear in mind the need to make proleptic appointments in this country, thereby increasing the supply?

Mr. Amery: Yes, indeed.

The following are the details:



Total


Barbados



1 Assistant Radiologist
4


2 Medical Officers of Health


1 Registrar-Medical


British Guiana



1 Pathologist
4


1 Medical Superintendent Mental Hospital


1 Obstetrician and Gynaecologist


1 Surgeon


British Honduras



2 Medical Officers
2


Jamaica



1 Surgeon
7


1 Bacteriologist


1 Assistant Bacteriologist


4 Medical Officers


Leewards



1 Medical Officer
1


Trinidad



4 Medical Officers (Grade C)
10


4 Medical Officers (Grade B)


1 Pathologist


1 Medical Officer of Health (Grade A)


Windwards



4 Medical Officers
4



32

United States Technical Aid

Mr. Royle: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what are the terms of the agreement granting to the West Indies technical aid from the United States of America and signed in the week ended 28th February.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: In view of the length of this document I am arranging for a copy to be placed in the Library of the House.

Mr. Royle: Would the right hon. Gentleman say at this moment whether there are any conditions attached to technical aid—things like American bases?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: No, Sir.

H.M.S. "Ulster"

Mr. Hoyle: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies for what purpose the anti-submarine frigate, H.M.S. "Ulster", put into St. George's Bay, Grenada, West Indies, early in February.

Mr. J. Amery: I would invite the attention of the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones) on 24th February.

Mr. Royle: I have seen that Answer. It is quite unsatisfactory. Will the hon. Gentleman say, in the first place, whether the Federation Government were consulted about this matter? Secondly, would he care to express an opinion on whether it is a good way to preserve good will in the Colonies to send a frigate the moment there is a sign of the least possible industrial unrest? Or did the frigate go there to fill up with rum?

Mr. Amery: The hon. Gentleman said that he had seen my answer. If he had read it carefully he would have seen that the frigate did not go because of an industrial unrest but in case there was a breakdown of essential services.

Mr. Royle: Oh.

Mr. Amery: It is all very well for the hon. Member to shrug his shoulders. He only displays his ignorance in so doing. There were no alternative technicians available in the island.

Mr. D. Jones: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the presence of a frigate was requested by the Governor


and that at the moment that the frigate arrived close to shore in St. George's Bay delicate industrial negotiations were going on? Is this kind of gunboat diplomacy likely to help in that?

Mr. Amery: The frigate was not invited because of industrial unrest but because of a danger of a breakdown of services. There happened to be a shortage of technicians in the island.

Oral Answers to Questions — TANGANYIKA

Financial Assistance

Mr. Skeffington: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what financial or other help Her Majesty's Government proposes to offer to the Government of Tanganyika, in view of that country's deficit of £1,200,000 in the last financial year.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The last financial year in fact showed a small surplus, and although a gap of £1,200,000 between revenue and expenditure has been estimated for the current financial year, the final deficit is likely to be smaller and will be met from the territory's surplus balances. Forecasts of the situation in 1959–60 and succeeding years give cause for concern, however, and it is on this account that Her Majesty's Government have accepted the obligation to assist Tanganyika in meeting its financial difficulties. The way in which this should be accomplished is now under consideration.

Mr. Skeffington: The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the latter part of his Answer will be very warmly received by all well-wishers of Tanganyika. In view of the many important social and economic developments taking place, he will appreciate that it is essential at this critical time in the territory's development that it gets this help.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes, I realise that.

Police Force

Mr. Wall: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps he is taking to reinforce the forces of law and order in Tanganyika.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Both the Governor and I are very alive to the need for

ensuring that the police force in Tanganyika is fully adequate to preserve the peace so that orderly development in all fields can go on unimpeded. The new Commissioner and one of my Inspectors-General have each recently completed an inspection of the force, and the Governor is now considering what measures may be necessary to bring its strength and equipment into line with current needs.

Mr. Wall: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in one district, Njombe, there is only one Asian police inspector and twenty constables, no transport and no wireless? Is he satisfied that the police force is really strong enough on the ground?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: No, I am not satisfied, and I am awaiting the report.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA

Multi-Racial School

Mr. J. Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is now in a position to give details of the plans announced by the specially-elected members of the Kenya Legislative Council to build a multi-racial secondary school for boys between the ages of 12 and 18 years; if he has now ascertained the views of the African-elected members of the Legislative Council; and from what sources the money to finance the school will be provided.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The sponsors are still working on the project. As far as I know, the African Elected Members have not expressed a view on the proposals. I understand that the sponsors are now exploring possible sources of finance, but I have no details.

Mr. Johnson: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that The Times of 11th December carried a full statement about this matter, saying that the Elected Members would build a leaders' college modelled on the best public schools in Britain and that there would be a preponderance of European boys to "ensure a levelling up of standards"? Why cannot the Members of the Legislative Council in Kenya have a normal State day secondary school for all races?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: That is another matter. This is a piece of enterprise upon which the specially Elected Members have got together, and I think that it is well worth consideration.

Mr. Johnson: Why cannot the right hon. Gentleman give a lead to the Governor and say, "We want a normal State day secondary school for all races" and not leave it to the Elected Members to say "We should do it in this fashion", which is a bad way?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: People may vary in their opinions.

Mr. Tom Mboya (Passport Facilities)

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why the assistant chief secretary of the Kenya Government was unable to give the reason for the refusal of the Immigration Department to endorse the passport of Mr. Tom Mboya, African trade union leader and member of the Legislative Council, for travel to Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: It is not the practice to give reasons for refusal of passport facilities. I understand that the Kenya Government have reconsidered the question of endorsing Mr. Mboya's passport and endorsements have been granted for Morocco and Algeria.

Mr. Mallalieu: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that reply and being grateful for the latter part of it, may I ask him to take steps himself to bring home to the Kenya Government what an immense legacy of they are founding for themselves and the whole white race in Africa by their recent conduct? Will he have regard to the protest, which is noted in The Times this morning, by the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons on this matter?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I think that is both ungenerous and unfair.

Land Consolidation (Report)

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what proposals were made by the eight non-official members of the Kenya Legislative

council appointed to examine the progress of land consolidation; and if their report was unanimous.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: After paying a tribute to the achievements of the land consolidation authorities the group recommended changes of detail in procedure, most of which have been accepted by the Kenya Government. This was no minority report, but the report was signed by four only of the eight members, the other four having failed to indicate whether they wished to sign or not.

Mr. Robinson: Does not the Colonial Secretary think it unfortunate that we cannot find out why the African members were unable to sign this report, and would he say whether a copy of the report is in the Library, or, if not, will he put one in the Library?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes, Sir. It is certainly disappointing that four Africans, including Mr. Mboya, neither signed nor assented. I will put a copy of the report in the Library.

Agricultural Wages

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Kenya Government have yet introduced legislation to set up machinery for determining statutory minimum wages in agriculture; and to what extent such wages will be based upon the living needs of man and wife.

Mr. J. Amery: Not yet. As regards the second part of the Question, I am consulting the Governor and will write to the hon. Member when I have his reply.

Mr. Robinson: Does not the hon. Gentleman think that the Kenya Government have been very dilatory about this? The talks have been going on for a very long time. Cannot he, even now, give an assurance that when these wages are fixed they will be based on family needs, which has been indicated as the principle for urban wages for Africans?

Mr. Amery: The matter is a difficult one, particularly at the time of an agricultural recession. It has not been easy to reconcile the conflicting opinions of the employers' and workers' representatives, whose co-operation is essential in this. The Kenya Government hope the


way is now clear to reach an agreement which will provide the basis of legislation. As I have said, I am consulting the Governor about the basis of agricultural wage fixing, and I would not like to anticipate the reply I shall get from him.

Oral Answers to Questions — NYASALAND

Situation

Mr. Wall: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will make a further statement about the disturbances in Nyasaland.

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the present situation in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia.

Mr. Grimond: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a further statement on the situation in Nyasaland.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Conditions in Nyasaland remain generally disturbed in the rural areas, but I am glad to say that there is a greater degree of stability in the main centres where conditions are returning to normal. Rumour is rife, and by broadcasting and dissemination of pamphlets every effort is being made to ensure that the true facts are brought to the notice of the people. Members of the African Civil Service, Posts and Telegraphs and Railways are back at work; but intimidation of loyal chiefs continues and attacks on Government servants outside the main centres have been increased.
Conditions are probably worst in the Northern Province. The homes of some African Government officers, schools and other public buildings have been burned down and communications have been disturbed by the widespread sabotage of roads and bridges.
Two mission schools have been burned. Troop reinforcements have now moved in to this Province.
In the Central Province two mission stations belonging to the Watch Tower Bible Society are reported to have been burned down, but there appears to be a decreasing number of incidents and among estate labour there has been a reaction of relief to the removal of Congress leaders.
In the Southern Province the situation in the Mlanje area remains tense with widespread interference with the telephone lines. Crowds have gathered on some of the tea estates, and on 7th March a riot took place on Thornwood estate in which two Africans were killed and four injured. Some Asian shops in isolated positions have been looted.
Casualties up to and including 7th March amongst the rioters were 44 killed and 71 injured. Twenty-three members of the security forces, including 13 Europeans, have been injured and 16 civilians, making a total of 39. I have no information on how many of the civilians injured were African and how many European.
To sum up, the indications are that the situation is gradually improving in the Central and Southern Provinces but in the Northern Province remains serious.
In Northern Rhodesia the community as a whole is naturally anxious about developments in Nyasaland and particularly in case the activities of Zambia in Northern Rhodesia should bring about a similar situation there.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Now read the letters in the Manchester Guardian.

Mr. Wall: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that when the situation in Nyasaland returns to normal the constitutional talks will continue? Will he also ascertain whether there have been favourable reactions among Africans in Nyasaland to the arrest of the more extreme members of the Congress Party?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The answer to both questions is "Yes."

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: The right hon. Gentleman referred to troop movements within the Central African Federation. Will he confirm the Press statement that an official statement was issued by the British Government that the Government have offered British troops in Kenya to be at the disposal of the Federal Government to deal with law and order in the British Protectorate of Nyasaland?
If this statement is correct, would the right hon. Gentleman say since when have the British Government abandoned their responsibility for law and order within this British Protectorate to Sir Roy Welensky? Is it not deeply humiliating


to hand over British troops to Sir Roy Welensky to use in this Protectorate, and by what right was this done?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The hon. and learned Gentleman is completely false in some of the assumptions and inferences which he has drawn. As the House knows, a small part of the United Kingdom Strategic Reserve is stationed in Kenya. It would be common prudence, when there is a state of disturbance in Central Africa, for measures to be taken to alert those forces, but there is no need for them to be used. The responsibility for law and order remains, as it has always remained, the responsibility of territorial Governors.

Mr. Grimond: Are we to understand that the Colonial Secretary wants to see the Southern Rhodesian forces withdrawn and replaced by British forces? Also, have any white people bean killed in these disturbances?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: In answer to the first part of the supplementary question, I have every hope that forces outside Nyasaland can be withdrawn shortly be-:muse of the restoration of law and order, but I have no wish that Federal forces outside Nyasaland should be withdrawn in order that United Kingdom forces should replace them. It has been suggested that there is a lack of co-operation between the Governor of Nyasaland and the Federal Government, which is completely untrue. The troops are there because the Governor of Nyasaland asked for them, and police reinforcements.
In answer to the second part of the supplementary question. I am glad to say that no people have been killed. The suggestion has been made that stories of a plot are obviously untrue because no one has been killed, but I would remind the House that the charge is frequently made that preventive action is delayed until it is too late.

Mr. Speaker: Lord Hinchingbrooke.

Mr. Brockway: On a point of order. The right hon. Gentleman has answered a question of mine on the Order Paper. Am I not entitled to put a supplementary question?

Mr. Speaker: I am hoping to come to the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) in due course.

Lord Hinchingbrooke: Is it right to say that my right hon. Friend has not ruled out the possibility of the Minister of State paying a visit to Nyasaland and the rest of the Federation at an early date?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: There is a later Question on the Order Paper which will enable me to deal with that point.

Mr. Brockway: Has the right hon. Gentleman yet received any evidence from the police of the story of a plot to massacre? Is it not the case that this information came from rewarded informers who had overheard a conversation in a forest last January? Is it not the case that Dr. Banda was not even there? Is it not the case that the Governor rejected this story? It was not until Sir Roy Welensky accepted it that any action was taken on the matter.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: That is a complete fabrication. The information given to me by the Governor was such, as a later Question will show, that neither he nor I could possibly fail to act upon it.

Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport: Is not the policy of revolutionaries in these countries to seize power by murder and bloodshed and then to abolish freedom? Is it not a pity that this policy seems to be encouraged, however unwittingly, by certain Left-wing politicians?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The forces of law and order do not always get the support they deserve, but in this and other cases I am very anxious to build bridges for reconciliation rather than to destroy them.

Mr. Creech Jones: In view of the widespread scepticism as to the massacre plot and the tragic loss of African life, will the Secretary of State seriously consider—what is the usual, customary practice—appointing a commission of inquiry in order to ascertain the facts and to distribute responsibility?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: There is a Question on that later on the Order Paper.

Co-operative Department

Mr. Pargiter: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what are the qualifications required by members of the staff of the Co-operative Department of Nyasaland; what are the numbers of Africans and Europeans, respectively, who are


employed by the Department; and what is the number of Africans who occupy senior positions.

Mr. J. Amery: I have asked the Governor to provide this information and, when it is available, I will circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Pargiter: Is it not rather unusual that such information is not more readily available? Will the hon. Gentleman inquire whether there is any machinery, and if so the methods, for recruiting for co-operative posts, because I understand that many well qualified African applicants for this kind of work are passed over in favour of Europeans less well qualified?

Mr. Amery: I do not think it surprising that we should not yet have the particulars here in London, as we have had only 48 hours to get them.

Labour Recruitment

Mr. Pargiter: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what methods are used to recruit labour in Nyasaland for work outside the territory; and what encouragement is given by the Government to those methods.

Mr. J. Amery: The recruitment of labour in Nyasaland for work outside the territory is largely done through two agencies. The Witwatersrand Native Labour Association engages labour for work in South Africa and the Rhodesia Native Labour Supply Commission for work in Southern Rhodesia. Both recruiting agencies operate under a Governor's permit which is renewable annually and a limit is placed on the numbers of workers which each may recruit. Subject to that control, the Nyasaland Government encourage these operations, which are directly beneficial to the economy.

Mr. Pargiter: Is this not one of the principal causes, or one of the causes, of some of the unrest in Nyasaland at present, that African leaders are getting more and more concerned at the denuding of their country by cheap labour outside it, labour which ought to be used to build up their country? Is it not time that the whole policy of recruitment of labour in Nyasaland was reconsidered?

Mr. Amery: I think the hon. Member misunderstands the situation. Being a

poor country, most of Nyasaland's able-bodied men go in search of better-paid work elsewhere.

Mr. Callaghan: Is not this one of the reasons why Nyasaland people at present are so unhappy about federation; because they have seen the effects of white domination in Southern Rhodesia and South Africa?

Mr. Amery: It could also be argued that it is one of the reasons why remaining within the framework of the Federation is so important.

Mr. Callaghan: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that, except to a Marxist, economic conditions are not the only things which influence one's approach to these matters?

Mr. Amery: It is hardly for the hon. Member to teach me that.

Incidents, Blantyre and Livingstonia

Miss Herbison: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) if he will make a statement on the arrest and treatment by the police of the African janitor of the Church of Scotland Mission School, Blantyre, Nyasaland, on 23rd February;
(2) what report he has received on the attack by a volunteer police patrol on pupils of the Church of Scotland Mission School, Blantyre, Nyasaland, on 23rd February.

Mr. Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if his attention has been drawn to the statement, a copy of which has been sent to him, of Mr. A. C. McAdam of the Church of Scotland Mission, Blantyre, Nyasaland, concerning incidents in Livingstonia and Blantyre; what reports he has received of rioting in those areas; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Hoy: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if his attention has been drawn to the statement, a copy of which has been sent to him, of the Reverend James Dougall, General Secretary of the Foreign Mission Department of the Church of Scotland, concerning incidents in Livingstonia and Blantyre; what reports he has received of rioting in those areas; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Grimond: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what information he has received about the incidents at the Church of Scotland Mission, Blantyre; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: As regards the incidents at the Church of Scotland Mission School, Blantyre, over the weekend of 21st–22nd February, groups of Africans, mainly youths, sought to terrorise the public by stoning cars and general hooliganism. On the evening of Monday, 23rd February, a patrol of three special constables came upon groups of African youths on either side of the Chileka Road rear the Church of Scotland Mission; they were shouting and singing, and the constables left their vehicle to investigate. The youths then ran into grounds of the Mission. The constables pursued them and thereupon were surrounded by a crowd of youths quickly augmented by adults. They decided to withdraw and were stoned; one stone smashed the windscreen of the police vehicle and temporarily knocked out one constable. They withdrew to the police station to report the incident but in the general fracas one of their party was left behind. Police reinforcements were sent to the scene. On arrival the police found an uncontrolled mob surrounding the remaining special constable. After one shot had been fired in the air order was restored.
Thereafter five youths, three teachers, and the janitor of the school were taken to the police station where they were interviewed. The youths and the teachers were sent back to the school and the janitor was released on bail. The special constable who had remained behind had been manhandled by the crowd and had received a blow on the chin.
Regarding events at Livingstonia, a report stated that the African Lakes Corporation store and a lorry were stoned on the 20th February and windows broken. Stones were also thrown at the manager of the store, Mr. Robson, but he was unhurt. His report stated that he had reported the incident to the Mission Principal, Mr. Macpherson, who rode up to the crowd on a bicycle; that the latter was unable to control them, and was in turn stoned; and that his bicycle was smashed, and that he made his way back to the house followed by the crowd.
I cannot trace having received any communication from the Rev. James Dougall or from Mr. McAdam, though I have seen a letter addressed to the Press by the latter. In view of the conflicting reports which are current the Governor has informed me that the details are being checked and should there be any variation in the information which I have given I will immediately inform the House.

Miss Herbison: Is the Minister aware that the information which he has just given to the House is completely different from that supplied by Mr. McAdam of the Church of Scotland Mission at Blantyre? Is he aware that the Rev. Macpherson denies completely being stoned—a statement which the Minister has again made? Is he also aware that Mr. McAdam has said that the truth is that the police initiated violence and acted irresponsibly?
Since these stories are so conflicting, does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that to reassure people who are interested in the Church of Scotland, both in this country and in Nyasaland, and everyone in the country who is seriously interested in and worried about what is happening in Nyasaland, we ought to find out from a commission from this House what exactly is happening there?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: On that point, I think it would be unreasonable for the hon. Lady not to accept what I have said—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—that in view of the conflicting reports which are current the Governor has asked for all the information to be checked and that I will let the House know if there is any variation.

Mr. Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the letter from Mr. McAdam to which he referred makes some extremely serious allegations, among them that the B.B.C. gave wrong information about this incident and, if I may quote the letter, that
The local official report is not just biased. it is blatantly provocative."?
Does not that underline the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) and made from the Front Opposition Bench that a commission of some independence ought to go out to get at the facts? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware


that we in the House feel that neither the Minister nor anybody else in the House is acquainted with the facts and that the facts given from the Government Front Bench are obviously biased and suspect?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The Governor, who is well known to many hon. Members, can be relied upon to sort out the conflicting stories, and I will tell the House the final conclusion.

Mr. Callaghan: Who will check the facts? Is not the Governor several hundred miles away in Blantyre, and is there any independent person who is able to go there and check the facts unless it is somebody from this House or from some equivalent body?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I think that few hon. Members would conclude that we have the monopoly of independence. There are, of course, people there who are qualified to arrive at a fair conclusion.

Mr. N. Pannell: Does not my right hon. Friend consider that in the present difficult circumstances it is of the utmost importance to support the forces of law and order and to protect them against unauthenticated innuendoes?

Mr. Grimond: Is it not also of great importance in the present situation that exaggerated accounts from either side should not be put out prematurely? As on the right hon. Gentleman's own showing there is some doubt about this matter, would he also represent to the Governor that authorities such as the B.B.C. and other information services should make sure of the facts before they are broadcast all over the world?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: That is always desirable, but here we have two different statements made by people of equal credibility. I deny that the European manager of the African Lakes Corporation is not entitled to be believed in the House like anybody else, but, as I have said, the Governor will look into the truth of the matter and I will let the House know if there is any variation.

Mr. Hoy: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a statement which he has made is contrary to what is supplied by the General Secretary of the Foreign Mission of the Church of Scotland? That gentleman makes plain in the information

which I have sent to the right hon. Gentleman that these boys were marching home as they normally did and were attacked by the police. Does not that call for an investigation by the right hon. Gentleman? Ought he not to consider where the Governor is obtaining the information which he is supplying to the House?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: As I have said, the Governor is looking into all this, and his only desire in this as in everything else is to supply the truth.

Detained Persons

Mr. Foot: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many persons have now been detained under the emergency regulations promulgated in Nyasaland; how many of such persons have been removed out of the territory to Southern Rhodesia or elsewhere; to what extent the emergency regulations provide, as in Kenya, for a right of appeal to an advisory committee and for detained persons to be furnished with a statement of the reasons for their detention; or how far those detainees will be informed of the reasons for their detention and given an opportunity to make representations thereon.

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many of the African members of the Nyasaland Council have been arrested under the emergency.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The latest information available to me is that 142 persons have been detained under detention orders made by the Governor under Emergency Regulation 24 (1). Included in this number is Mr. Chipembere, the only member of the Nyasaland Legislative Council to be detained. In addition, 113 persons have been detained under Emergency Regulation 24 (7) for a limited period of twenty-eight days. Of the total of 255 detained, 102 have been removed to Southern Rhodesia.
Persons detained under detention orders made by the Governor can lodge objections in writing to an Advisory Committee already established, and it is the duty of the Chairman of the Committee to inform objectors of the reason for their detention. Detainees are informed of their right to lodge objections against their detention.

Mr. Foot: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that, although it is a good thing to have an advisory committee, it is no substitute for trial in a court of law, and since allegations of a conspiracy to murder have been put forward, is it proposed to take legal proceedings against any of those supposed to be implicated?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: That is a matter for the Attorney-General in the territory concerned. The hon. and learned Gentleman knows very well that in problems of this kind there is often great difficulty in finding people ready to come forward as witnesses.

Sir R. Robinson: Can my right hon. Friend say whether any arrangements have been made to look after the welfare of the families of the detainees?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes, Sir, there are.

Mr. Rankin: But would not the Secretary of State agree that, since a member or the Nyasaland Council is involved in this, at least he should bring him or arrange that he should be brought to trial?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: As I have said already, it is not for me to bring people to trial; that is a matter for the Attorney-General.

Commission of inquiry

Mr. Foot: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will advise the Governor of Nyasaland to follow the precedent set in the Gold Coast in 1948 by appointing a commission of inquiry to inquire into and report on the recent disturbances in Nyasaland and their underlying causes, and to make recommmdations on any matter arising from their inquiry.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: As my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General said on 4th March, we would not rule out, nor would we ignore, any proposal which would enable Parliament to discharge its responsibilities or to be accurately informed. But we consider that the obvious next course is, as was recommended in both Houses on 3rd March, to pursue the original proposal that my noble Friend the Minister of State for the Colonies should pay his visit to Nyasaland at such time as the Governor of Nyasaland thinks would be appropriate.

I am at present considering in consultation with the Governor of Nyasaland whether it would be helpful if my noble Friend were to interrupt his East African visit in order to go to Nyasaland at the earliest practicable date.

Mr. Foot: Would the right hon. Gentleman answer the Question as it appears on the Paper? Does he appreciate that in the Gold Coast in 1948 Dr. Nkrumah and other persons against whom serious allegations had been made had the opportunity at a public inquiry of answering the smear campaign against them, and ought not this precedent to be followed in Nyasaland?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am aware, of course, that the Socialist Government in their time also found it necessary to take strong action against law breakers. If we can learn any profitable lesson from their experience, we will certainly do so.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Is not the Secretary of State aware that the action taken by my right hon. Friend over the Gold Coast helped, first, to stabilise the situation, and secondly, led the way to the constitutional development which brought Ghana independence? Is he not also aware that when we were faced with a similar situation in Kenya, the despatch of a responsible commission from this House did a great deal to inform the country of the situation there? Is not the situation the same now in Nyasaland?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I have already dealt with the parallel of Ghana—or the Gold Coast, as it was then. In the case of Kenya the circumstances were different, as those who went in 1954 on the useful Parliamentary mission will realise; but as I have said, we are closing no doors in this matter, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman to read my Answer carefully.

Mr. Callaghan: Is the Colonial Secretary going to follow the parallel of Ghana all the way through? Are the people of Nyasaland to have the opportunity of choosing their own form of Government in the same way as the people of the Gold Coast had that opportunity? Further may I ask, as regards Lord Perth's visit, whilst we shall all be glad if he will get there at the earliest possible moment, will he have the opportunity of talking with the detained African leaders?


If not, with whom among any representative Africans will he have conversations?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: If the decision is that my noble Friend goes out there at an early date, I will certainly tell the House about it and there will then be an opportunity to question me as to the range of his talks and activities there.

Mr. Braine: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the parallel just referred to is not all that close; that a closer parallel was provided in Malaya, where an emergency was not proclaimed by the party opposite until after scores of Chinese, Malays and Europeans had been killed, though subsequently the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) was responsible for detaining 25,000 persons without any charge being brought against them?

Mr. Bottomley: In view of the rising fear, prejudices and conflicting rumours coming from Nyasaland, does not the Secretary of State see the wisdom of sending a mission at once to that land in order to save the situation from getting graver, when we could do nothing to help?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I have nothing to add to my Answer.

State of Emergency

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will state the date and time of the receipt by the Governor of Nyasaland of the information which caused him to declare a state of emergency and the date and time of the receipt of this information by his Department in London.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The Governor's decision to declare an emergency depended not only on specific information received by him but on the general development of the situation in the territory. He informed me of the probability that he would have to declare a state of emergency in a telegram which reached the Colonial Office at 10.30 p.m. on 26th February. And he told me of his definite intention to do so in a telegram which reached me at 2 p.m. on 2nd March. I had been aware, even before 26th February, that the Governor considered that the declaration of a state of emergency would probably become necessary.

Mr. Swingler: Are we to take it, therefore, from that answer that there is no specific evidence of a plot? Did not the Secretary of State say last week that suddenly some evidence of a conspiracy had come to light, whereas we are now told that it was on more or less general information that the Governor declared the emergency? Did not the Governor the day before say to the Press that there was no need to declare a state of emergency to deal with dissidents? Is it credible that the Governor changed his mind within a few hours unless strong political pressure had been brought to bear on him?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I dealt with all those three mis-statements of the hon. Gentleman in detail in the debate which took place at 7 o'clock a few nights ago.

Mr. Callaghan: Will the Colonial Secretary make available to the House, in the form of a White Paper or a statement, the details of the plot upon which the Governor acted? In view of the fact that journalists in Blantyre have been passing some information over here, can the House of Commons please have an authoritative statement of it?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The hon. Gentleman knows, or should know, that it is impossible to give an answer of an affirmative kind to that question, anyhow at this stage. Information of this kind is bound to be confidential, as anybody who has held high office, under difficult circumstances, knows only too well.

Mr. Callaghan: I am asking whether the House of Commons can have an authoritative statement on the plot. If journalists in Blantyre can be met by the Governor and told what it was that led him to declare a state of emergency and be given the details of the plot, why cannot the House of Commons have at least that information?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I have already made two statements on that.

Oral Answers to Questions — ADEN

Colonial Secretary's Visit

Mr. Wall: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will make a statement about his visit to Aden.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: My visit, which included the Aden Protectorate as well


as Aden Colony, was from 10th to 15th February, and 21st to 28th February. On 11th February, I was present at the inauguration ceremony of the Federation of Arab Amirates of the South, and I later visited the Rulers of many of the States in the Eastern and Western Aden Protectorate, including the States of the new Federation.

Mr. Wall: While congratulating my right hon. Friend on the constitutional advance given to the Western Aden Federation, may I ask if my right hon. Friend can say whether this unity is likely to prove the basis of a loyal State which may eventually emerge into an Arab sovereign member of the Commonwealth?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: That is indeed possible, but I think the Rulers are wise in wanting to build slowly and wisely first.

Oral Answers to Questions — UGANDA

Milk

Mrs. Butler: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what price per pint of milk is paid in Kampala and the surrounding district; what is the average daily wage of the population; and what efforts are being made by the Government of Uganda to provide a lower-priced milk, as suggested by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation Report in 1958.

Mr. J. Amery: In and around Kampala, the price of imported milk is 65–70 cents a pint and local milk averages 55 cents. Only about 6 per cent. of the total population of some 5½ million in Uganda is in paid employment at any one time, and only a small minority of those are entirely dependent on wages. Wage rates vary considerably depending on skill, occupation and district, but the average daily wage in Kampala is 5s.
The Uganda Government are encouraging local milk production by research and advice to livestock owners. At present there is no local surplus for processing as suggested in the Food and Agriculture Organisation Report, but a Kenya firm, in conjunction with the Uganda Development Corporation, is considering establishing such a project using surplus milk from Kenya.

Mrs. Butler: I thank the Minister for that reply. In view of the fact that the F.A.O. Report suggested that milk per pint would cost the lower-paid wage earners a quarter of their daily wages and of the great need for milk in the territory, can the Minister say whether, in addition to the measures already being taken, the Uganda Government have asked U.N.I.C.E.F. for an extension of the milk powder in schools scheme, as I raised this matter last December and the hon. Gentleman promised to call attention to that possibility?

Mr. Amery: I understand that the U.N.I.C.E.F. programme is going on, certainly until 1960.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN RHODESIA

Kariba Dam Scheme (Wages)

Mr. Pargiter: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the average weekly wage paid to Africans working on the Kariba dam scheme in Northern Rhodesia; what were the causes of the recent strike; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: 41s. 3d., exclusive of food and quarters. On 25th February the workers on the north bank struck in support of the demand of underground workers on the south bank. The majority returned to work the next day, though 150 out of 730 elected to be repatriated by the employers, as did 38 Northern Rhodesian Africans employed on the south bank.

Mr. Pargiter: Does not the hon. Gentleman consider that the wages paid for this particular job are disgracefully low, having regard to the value of the work and the benefit to the whole country? Ought not the people doing the work to be paid much higher wages than are paid at present?

Mr. Amery: In the light of local conditions and local comparisons, I do not think that they are unfair.

Oral Answers to Questions — CYPRUS

The Church (Excommunicated Families)

Sir J. Lucas: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if in view of the amnesty given to all internees and others


in Cyprus, he will consult the Archbishop Makarios with a view to securing that the families who were excommunicated for supporting the British authorities should be readmitted to the Church.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I have no information that Cypriot families were in fact excommunicated for supporting the British authorities, but I have referred this question to the Governor for further inquiry.

Cypriots, United Kingdom (Nationality)

Mr. Langford-Holt: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what negotiations or discussions he has had concerning the future nationality of Cypriots at present employed in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I have at present nothing to add to the reference to nationality made in the Declaration by H.M. Government at the Conference on Cyprus and accepted by the other parties to the Conference.

Mr. Langford-Holt: Can we understand, therefore, that if the island of Cyprus, as a republic, remains in the Commonwealth all citizens will have full rights of British citizenship? If, on the other hand, Cyprus decides to leave the Commonwealth, will these citizens be treated for all purposes as aliens in this country?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I think that is so, but it is a little early to prejudge this matter. There are some 60,000 Cypriots at the present moment in the United Kingdom. This is a matter which needs very careful thought and I am sure ought to be approached in an imaginative way.

Grivas

Mr. John Hall: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies to what extent the terrorist leader Grivas has been in personal contact with the authorities in Cyprus in connection with his safe conduct from that island.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: There has been no personal contact, but I think the House will have noted the satisfactory terms of the leaflet he issued yesterday calling on his followers to lay down their arms and accept the London Agreement.

Mr. Hall: May I ask my right hon. Friend, firstly, whether he can confirm that Grivas now exists in nothing but name; and secondly, if he would not agree that, despite the attempts that are now being made to portray Grivas as an heroic and patriotic leader, he should be remembered as a hired assassin who was very successful in carrying out many cowardly and brutal murders but completely failed to achieve his main object?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I hope that all of us are looking forward to the future rather than to the past.

Mr. Mellish: Would not the Colonial Secretary agree that, in conformity with usual Tory policy on this matter, we ought to have Grivas staying at the Dorchester Hotel at £25 a day?

Hon. Members: Answer.

Mr. Mellish: That is what the Government did with Makarios.

Protection of Individuals

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies to what extent leaders in Cyprus are being protected by bodyguards who are not Government servants or members of the security forces.

Mr. J. Amery: Arrangements for the protection of individuals in Cyprus are the responsibility of the police.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Has my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary or the Colonial Office made any investigation into reports that on the return of Archbishop Makarios men who were described as members of E.O.K.A. searched British subjects? Will my hon. Friend ensure that there is no encroachment upon the police functions as the proper authorities and that British subjects are not subjected to indignities in Cyprus?

Mr. Amery: Anyone who is searched in Cyprus against his will in a public place has, of course, immediate recourse to the courts.

Grivas Diaries

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what discussions he had with Archbishop Makarios during his visit to London concerning the authenticity of the Grivas


diaries; and if it is now intended to publish the diaries in full.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The answer to the first part of the Question is, "None", and to the second part, "No, Sir".

Mr. Robinson: Is the Colonial Secretary aware that some of us are getting a little weary of the continuing discoveries by the Government of plots and conspiracies whenever political conditions become difficult in the Colonies? Is he aware that we shall now give the same credence to this story that we gave to Dr. Jagan's plot to burn Georgetown and the Nyasaland plot to assassinate Europeans?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The hon. Gentleman almost dissuades me from the wisdom, despite the vast expense and labour, of publishing the diaries. I do not, however, think that any responsible people have any doubt about their authenticity. As I said before, cannot we all look to the future in Cyprus rather than the past?

Mr. Mellish: Would the right hon. Gentleman say that about the boys who gave their lives?

Released Detainees (Re-employment)

Mr. Prentice: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what facilities are available in Cyprus for the employment or re-employment of released detainees; and what are the latest available unemployment figures for the island.

Mr. J. Amery: Many have returned to their former occupations and employers are showing readiness to engage the others. The latest unemployment figure is about 5,500.

Mr. Prentice: Is it a fact that even before the people were released from detention the unemployment figures in the island were the highest for several years, and as long as we have responsibility there, will the Government do everything they possibly can to ameliorate this problem? In particular, can the Minister tell us about the progress made in re-employing the people who were dismissed from N.A.A.F.I. and other Service establishments last year?

Mr. Amery: I have no precise figures here, but as I said, there has been evidence of employers being ready to

negotiate with those released, and there has been a great deal of re-employment by the Services.

Oral Answers to Questions — HONG KONG AND SINGAPORE

Tuberculosis

Mr. Awbery: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies w hat percentage of people in Hong Kong and Singapore are suffering from tuberculosis; what is the death rate; and, in view of the satisfactory methods of dealing with this disease in the United Kingdom, what steps are being taken to introduce similar remedial measures in the two Colonies.

Mr. J. Amery: The Hong Kong 2 per cent. of adults have the disease in active form. The death rate in 1958 was 83·8 per hundred thousand. In Singapore there is no accurate figure available for the whole population.
Preliminary results of a case-finding programme conducted last year amongst those over fourteen years of age show that, of those X-rayed, the percentage suffering from the disease in its active form varies from 1·1 in the rural area to 4·7 in the City area.
The death rate in 1957 was 51 per hundred thousand. In both places vigorous campaigns are being waged against the disease and in both all proved remedial measures employed in the United Kingdom are already applied.

Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister aware that the incidence of tuberculosis in these two States of Hong Kong and Singapore is the highest in the world, and that it cries aloud for something more to be done than is being done to reduce the incidence of this disease?

Mr. Amery: I agree with the hon. Member that the figures are indeed very grave, but I am sure he will be glad to know that in Hong Kong in 1958 the death rate was the lowest on record. The success of our efforts in Singapore may be measured by the fact that the death rate was 51 per 100,000 in 1957–58, whereas it was 117 per 100,000 in 1950. so that some progress is being made.

Mr. S. Silverman: Can the Under-Secretary say whether there are any separate figures in his analysis of the incidence of tuberculosis for employees in the Hong Kong cotton and textile mills,


where the hours of labour and the length of the working week are unconscionably high? May I ask him whether he is aware that labour conditions of this kind are highly conducive to the development of tuberculosis in Hong Kong and to unemployment in Lancashire?

Mr. Amery: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put down a Question.

Oral Answers to Questions — AFRICAN TERRITORIES

United States Institutions (Assistance)

Colonel Beamish: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement about the activities of the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford and Rockfeller Foundations in British Dominions, Colonies, and territories in Africa, stating in particular approximately what sums have so far been spent in these areas and for what purposes; and if he will give an outline of the information received by Her Majesty's Government concerning their plans for the future, as well as an assurance that there is the closest possible liaison between these foundations, Government Departments, and the Governments concerned.

Mr. J. Amery: As the reply is inevitably rather long, I will, with my hon. and gallant Friend's permission, circulate it with the OFFICIAL REPORT:

The statement is as follows:
The Carnegie Corporation of New York, through their British Dominions and Colonies Programme, have for many years given invaluable assistance to education in many parts of Africa. Since the war, their assistance has been concentrated largely in the development of the universities and higher technical colleges in East, West and Central Africa and in close association with the Inter-University Council for Higher Education Overseas and the Council on Oversea Colleges of Arts, Science and Technology. A current example is a training scheme for locally born junior members of the academic and library staffs of university colleges. But for full details of the many schemes and the sums allocated to them I must refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the published annual reports of the Corporation dating back to 1930.
As the result of missions sent to Africa in 1957 and 1958, the Ford Foundation recently announced the inauguration of an Africa Programme of assistance to schools, colleges, universities and technical institutes in East, West and Central Africa to a total of over $1 million. Grants already approved have gone to university colleges to provide accommodation for visiting scholars and research

workers and to technical institutes for library development.
The work of the Rockfeller Foundation in Africa dates back at least to the formation of the Foundation's West Africa yellow fever commission of 1925. The successful research which they conducted at Entebbe and Yaba, with which the name of Dr. Mahaffy will always be associated, has been of inestimable value to the peoples of the African continent. I would like to take this opportunity of paying tribute to the continued interest of the Foundation in this work and its extension to research into other viruses. Again I must ask my hon. and gallant Friend to refer to the published annual report of the Foundation for details of the many grants which they have made through the years.
Members of my Department keep closely in touch with the specialist and executive staff of these Foundations, assist them in making arrangements for their tours of Africa and discuss possible projects with them.
It is becoming increasingly the practice for surveys of specific problems in Africa to be undertaken at the expense of these Foundations jointly by experts from the United States, the United Kingdom and the African territory concerned. Several important surveys of this kind are at present under discussion, but I am sure that my hon. and gallant Friend will understand that I must not anticipate an announcement by the Trustees in relation to them.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOUTHERN RHODESIA

Nyasalanders

Sir A. Baldwin: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many Africans from Nyasaland are living in Southern Rhodesia, both permanently and as migratory labourers.

Mr. J. Amery: I am asking the Governor for the figures and when they arrive I will circulate them in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Sir A. Baldwin: In view of the allegations made by the other side in the smear campaign against Sir Roy Welensky and the Southern Rhodesia Government, is it not extraordinary that the number of Nyasalanders who want to go to Southern Rhodesia has to be limited because so many want to go?

Mr. Amery: indicated assent.

Mr. Callaghan: Does the Minister say that there is a smear campaign going on?

Mr. Amery: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Callaghan: Or is it that the hon. Gentleman agrees that the conditions in


Nyasaland are of such a character that these people have to leave the country and go elsewhere to find work?

Mr. Amery: I confirm, first of all, that in our view there is a smear campaign going on on the other side. On the second point, the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) tried earlier to draw my attention to the danger of attributing all effects to economic reasons agreed with the hon. Member, but the spectacle of Satan rebuking sin must be amusing to the House.

Mr. Callaghan: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we do not want any lessons from a Suez rebel about smear campaigns? Is he not aware that there are still, not only even but especially, on his side of the House hon. Members who still have some regard to principles in this matter and who believe that what has been happening in the Federation in the last week would not meet with the approval of a great many people in this country, and it is upon that basis that the Opposition is basing its present position?

Mr. Amery: What the hon. Member has just said confirms my supplementary answer.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTH BORNEO, BRUNEI AND SARAWAK

Closer Association

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what proposals for federation or closer association of British North Borneo, Brunei, and Sarawak have been under recent consideration; for what reasons these proposals proved unacceptable; and

what further efforts for closer association of these territories will be made.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: There are no precise proposals. Consideration of the possibility of closer association has been going on in Sarawak and North Borneo during the past year and the concept has certainly not been declared unacceptable. The Government of Brunei has not yet given the matter its consideration but a joint Sarawak-North Borneo fact-finding mission is now to travel in the two territories and report to their Governments.

Mr. Sorensen: Might I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the fact-finding mission is one that he himself has sent out there or whether it has been arranged locally, and who are involved in the conflict over the possible federation of these three territories? Finally, may I ask whether he has seen a report in the Press that Brunei has been obstructing these efforts?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: It would come curiously from any member of the Opposition now to ask me to force territories together which they might claim do not want to be closely associated. This is essentially a matter for local consideration, and fact-finding missions are locally formed.

Mr. Sorensen: That does not answer my question.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

SUPPLY

[7TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

ARMY ESTIMATES, 1959–60; ARMY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1958–59; NAVY ESTIMATES, 1959–60; NAVY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1958–59; AIR ESTIMATES, 1959–60; AIR SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1958–59

ARMY ESTIMATES

Vote 1. Pay, etc., of the Army

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £125,260,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray expense of the pay etc., of the Army, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

3.31 p.m.

Mr. R. J. Mellish: I think that it will be for the convenience of hon. Members if, at the beginning of the debate, it is made clear that we have only until ten o'clock to discuss all the Service Estimates, including the Supplementary Estimates. That being so, hon. Members on this side of the Committee are willing to co-operate with the Government to ensure that the Navy and Air Estimates are also discussed. We thought that it might be convenient for our discussion on Army matters to take about three hours, thus giving an opportunity for the Navy and Air Estimates to be discussed in the remaining time.
With that in mind, I propose, in accordance with past procedure, to be brief and to ask a few questions on the Votes in which I am interested. My hon. Friends and other hon. Members will ask their own questions, and perhaps the Under-Secretary will be good enough to wind up at the end of our discussion on each Vote.

Mr. George Wigg: On a point of order. Before my hon. Friend gets to the merits of his case, I should like to discuss our procedure, because it is a novel doctrine that there should be a private arrangement, presumably

involving the two Front Benches and the Chair.

The Chairman: No arrangement has been made with me.

Mr. Wigg: In that case, can we be told about this arrangement to carve up the Votes in the interests of the two Front Benches? It is the historic right of back benchers to raise matters with which individual Members, the Services as a whole, or constituents may be concerned. This is an occasion for the redress of grievances. It is certainly the right of back benchers to speak on these occasions, and we should not be so lightly passed over in this way.

The Chairman: No arrangement has been made with me and I deprecate that accusation. I hope that the hon. Member will withdraw it.

Mr. Wigg: I made no accusation. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] My hon. Friend referred to an arrangement and clearly said that the time of the Committee could be divided up. That could not be done unless there was an agreement, and any agreement must involve the Chair.

The Chairman: It is that which I cannot allow to be said. I am not party to any agreement, never have been, and never shall be. I hope that that accusation will not be made again, because it is absolutely untrue.

Mr. Wigg: In that case, I will say, first, that there is no accusation, and, secondly, that if there is, I withdraw it.

Mr. Mellish: I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has made so much difficulty about this. The point is that we have only until ten o'clock to discuss all three main Estimates and the Supplementary Estimates. In fairness to those hon. Members who want to speak about the Navy and Air Force, it was suggested that we should talk about the Army for about three hours. That was done only to facilitate the arrangements of hon. Members and was designed to leave the remaining time to discussion of the Navy and Air Force matters. This is simply a way of making use of the time available democratically and to fit the interests of those Members concerned with other Services. If there is any Agatha Christie mystery about that, I am sorry.
We have not discussed the matter with the Chair. I discussed it with the Under-Secretary only with a view to facilitating business. If that does not suit hon. Members, the remedy is in their hands and we can talk about the Army until ten o'clock. In those circumstances, however, I hope that those hon. Members who do so will be prepared, after the House has risen, to explain their attitude to those hon. Members interested in the Navy and Air Force. Having said that, I now want to deal with Vote I, concerning the Army.
There is one general comment which I have to make on pay, and it concerns Cyprus. Some distress may be caused to many of our serving men there as a consequence of the early termination of hostilities in the island. I say at once that everybody is delighted that hostilities have ended, but it so happens that many of our men have become committed to longterm hire-purchase contractual arrangements, never suspecting that the Government would settle the matter so soon—and I think that right hon. Gentlemen opposite did not believe that it would be settled so early.
Many men have signed agreements to make payments over a very much longer time than that which now is avalaible to them, and I understand that pressure is already being brought to bear on some of them. This matter has been widely noted in newspapers, and I ask the Under-Secretary whether it has been brought to his attention and, if so, whether he proposes to do anything to help the men concerned.
On page 20 of the Estimates, there is a reference to National Service grants. It is estimated that in the coming year the amount of the grants will be increased by £½ million over last year, at a time when there are fewer National Service men in the Army. What is the reason for that increase? Is it that the grants have been more widely advertised, or that the Government expect much more distress in the homes of those concerned than has been the case hitherto?
On page 24 there is a reference to education allowances. The total of allowances for warrant officers, N.C.O.s and men is to be increased from £12,000 last year to £29,000 for the coming year. That is a very small sum for the vast number of

men involved. With fewer men, the allowances in the R.A.F. are estimated at £90,000 for the coming year. It is suspected that that is probably because the allowances have not been fully advertised in the Army. It is important that the men should know what they are entitled to.

3.39 p.m.

Mr. George Chetwynd: When is it intended to make the way in which a soldier gets his pay more civilised? This matter has been raised several times. There is something undignified in a soldier having to salute and put out his hand to receive his pay. Cannot a soldier be paid as if he were in a civilian occupation, in which he would get a pay packet in the normal way?

3.40 p.m.

Mr. George Wigg: The point that I raised with my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) is not an academic one. Up to the outbreak of war it was the custom of the Committee, when debating the Army Estimates, to divide on every Vote. There was a very good reason for that. In the time of the Civil War, in the seventeenth century, it was the practice of the monarchy—and that practice has been carried out on many occasions since then—to spend upon pay money that had been voted for rations or quartering. That was when Parliament won its battle with the Crown by limiting the number of men who could be raised in any one year. I understand that accounting procedures now are such that it is a crime against the financial Holy Ghost to spend on pay money which has been voted for rations. That is why the Votes are put down as they are.
The powers of the Executive in these matters are already strong and, following the Report of the Select Committee on the Army Act, they were further strengthened. I was a member of that Committee, and I always understood that the Service Ministers, together with the Opposition Front Bench, would play the game vis-à-vis the back benchers. A back bencher who wishes to discuss a matter concerning the War Office cannot ask for Vote 3 to be placed on the Order Paper. The Votes which are put down on the Order Paper are selected by the Government, and only by the Government.
It is true that the Opposition can make certain requests in the matter, and that those requests are often granted, but the back bencher has no right in the matter, and the one right that he did have has been given up—and I was one of those in the forefront in suggesting that it should be given up—namely, that the Government did not move the Closure on Vote A, so that the discussion upon it could go on for as long as any hon. Member wanted to raise matters concerning it. In such circumstances, sittings went on well into the next day.
I am raising this matter as a House of Commons man, and because I am concerned for good government and for the Army. I can appreciate that some Members who want to get on with the business may say, "Let us get rid of Vote A and move on to the next Service Department Estimate at 6.30 p.m.," but I am not a party to that sort of thing. I have not been consulted about it, and I think that it is a bad procedure. Although I am not against conversations among the two Front Benches, it is wrong for them to be brought into the open in this way.

Mr. Ellis Smith: I have a great deal of sympathy with my hon. Friend, and I accept his reasoning, but can he tell me what restriction has been imposed on our debate?

Mr. Wigg: It has been said from the Floor—and we heard it today for the first time—that the discussion on the Army is to end at 6.30 p.m.

Mr. Ellis Smith: If my hon. Friend and other hon. Members are determined in the matter, and if there is any real indignation about questions concerning the Army which they feel should be reflected in speeches in the House, no one has the right to prevent them from speaking, even if it means going on into the night.

Mr. Wigg: I am obliged to my hon. Friend, particularly as he is a member of my constituency.
I am saying that it is unfair to be put into the position of appearing to shut out those who want to speak upon the Navy and the Air Force. None of the debates on the Service Estimates has gone its full time this year, and there has been plenty of opportunity for questions to be raised about the Navy and Air Force.

The same consideration applies to the Army, I agree, except that I had the good fortune to catch the eye of the Chair in previous years.

Mr. George Brown: My hon. Friend will remember that the debate on the Army Estimates ended before the time allotted to it had expired because my hon. Friend and other hon. Members were not here to raise the points they had in mind.

Mr. Wigg: I agree, but I explained that I was ill when we had the defence debate. Further, I cannot stand the atmosphere of the House for long nowadays without going out to get some air, and I did not come back after 11 o'clock.

Mr. Brown: We can understand why my hon. Friend could not stay here on the day in question, although he talked to me during that day. I want to make it clear that the arrangements made today were made to take care of the very point he is raising.

Mr. Wigg: I am obliged for my right hon. Friend's consideration and sympathy. What really matters is the House of Commons. An arrangement which, even if made, ought to be made behind the Speaker's Chair, ought not to be used in such a way as to enter into the permanent scheme of things. The point is that what is accepted without challenge this year becomes a precedent to be quoted in future years.

Mr. Mellish: That is exactly why we did it this year. It was done last year, and my right hon. Friend then took part in the debates. If he reads the reports of the debates of last year, he will see that that is true. There is no precedent here.

Mr. Wigg: I am sorry, but that is not true. This is the first occasion upon which I have taken part in a debate on the Service Estimates that I have ever heard of an arrangement of this kind having been formally entered into by the two Front Benches. I have heard of informal arrangements, but not of formal ones.

The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. Hugh Fraser): It is an informal arrangement, made for the convenience of the Committee.

Mr. Wigg: In that case it should not have been mentioned in the Committee. That settles the point. Perhaps I may now comment upon some aspects of the debates which have taken place.
I want, first, to refer to a report in the Daily Telegraph, which said of the White Paper in general that the Minister of Defence did not invite arguments about principle, and that this year he very considerately let sleeping dogs lie. I do not think that sleeping dogs should be left to lie; they should be brought out into the open. There is a very good reason for this. There is no doubt that the power which our country can demand, by land, sea or air, is very much less than it was in the past. It is also true that the consequences of that fact are not appreciated fully by the Committee or the public outside.
There is a good example which I shall remember for years to come. On the day of the publication of the defence White Paper there appeared in the Evening News the words:
Blue Streak Wins, Macmillan goes to Moscow and will now talk from strength.
There never was greater nonsense than that. Neither Moscow nor the Prime Minister was impressed.
But that is the kind of statement that is made and accepted by the more unthinking sections of the community, and when the Government, of whatever political complexion they may be, want to follow policies of conciliation not for moral reasons, but because they cannot command sufficient strength, they are prevented from doing so by the illusions of grandeur which persist in our society.
There is no better example of this than our handling of our colonial problems and international policies. I wish to keep within the rules of order, and I am talking on Vote 1, which is the focal point of the whole of our defence policy. The whole of Government policy rests upon the switching over to higher rates of pay, thereby getting further recruits, and organising and equipping those increased numbers so as to give us the conventional forces which we need if we are to meet our problems.
With Vote A is tied up the question not only of recruiting, but of our colonial forces, and I want to deal with one aspect of them. I read the reports of the Army

and defence debates, and noticed one or two old-fashioned arguments for using our Colonies as reservoirs of manpower for our forces. That argument was not a starter when the Government were in opposition, and it is not a starter now. Even if it were, it would require many years to implement, as we found during the war. One of the first decisions that has to be made concerns the adoption of a training lingua franca.
If we want to expand and raise considerable forces in West Africa, for instance, we must recruit among the various African-speaking tribes, and we are forced back upon English. In Kenya, where the people speak Swahili, Chinyanja and Hausa, that policy is adopted, in the face of the vast experience of, and wise advice from, people like General Giffard, who was Inspector-General. They have fallen back on that policy instead of using Swahili and Hausa. I make that general point.
Dealing with the current problem of Nyasaland, as I understand two battalions of the King's African Rifles were raised in the territory. Each battalion has about 40 Federation-based Europeans, of which probably a number are British and a number may have come from Great Britain and joined the Rhodesian forces on arrival. There are seconded to this regiment a number of British officers and N.C.O.s who are members of the British Army and for whom a contribution is paid back into Vote I.
I wish to know from the Minister the conditions under which they are employed. If the hon. Gentleman will look at the report of the debate which took place on the Ghana Independence Bill, when the question of what was to happen to War Office-controlled forces and the 500 British officers and N.C.O.s seconded there was raised, he will see that the Secretary of State for the Colonies said:
Under the terms by which their secondment is arranged Her Majesty's Government reserve the right to withdraw British personnel from service in the Gold Coast if conditions should arise where it would be considered that such action should be necessary."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th December, 1956; Vol. 562, c. 321.]
Those are the terms of secondment laid down for Ghana. which has obtained independence and is a Dominion. Will the Minister tell the Committee what are the terms of secondment of British officers


and N.C.O.s serving with the King's African Rifles? Is there any difference? May we take it that the leaving of these British officers and N.C.O.s with the King's African Rifles means that the Government approve of the action taken in the Federation and. therefore, accept full responsibility for the policy adopted there? If there is a difference, will the Minister explain what it is? There is no need for me to labour the point. We are in Committee, which gives me the opportunity of saying something further if the reply of the Under-Secretary of State is unsatisfactory.
I wish to turn to another and very important matter, the question of recruiting and the organisation of manpower. Judging by what was said during the defence debate and the debate on the Army Estimates, it seems that all hon. Members are completely satisfied with recruiting and, therefore, the measures introduced by the Minister of Defence about two years ago were wise. Indeed, it was said by one hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite that what has happened had been planned for and that it revealed the best of all possible worlds.
I take the opposite view. Nothing that I have seen has caused me to change it. I wish, first, to draw the attention of the Committee to a few facts, which cannot be contradicted. The Grigg Report said that in December, 1957, when the Committee first met the Deputy-Secretary of the War Office, he made plain that recruiting at that stage was running only at 50 per cent. of what would be required to give the estimate of 165,000 men. It is also clear from what has happened since that this figure of 165,000 was not based on military considerations, but was a figure decided on to meet the political convenience of the Minister of Defence.
During the debates on the Army Estimates, the Secretary of State for War made one or two rather revealing statements. He said, of the establishment of the infantry—for the purposes of my calculations I am presuming that the right hon. Gentleman meant what he said, infantry of the line—that if the ceiling for 165,000 was to be fixed at 635 men, that would be the establishment of an infantry battalion.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that as a result of raising the ceiling

from 165,000 to 180,000 the figure of 11.000 would be the turnover for the purpose of raising the establishment. There are 49 battalions of the line. For easy calculation we will call that figure 50 and if we do a division sum with 50 it gives us a figure of 220. Therefore, we have established, first, that the figure was taken when recruiting was running at half of what it should be, which meant that the total was at least 15,000 below what the Minister knew that it ought to be for military reasons. So that the establishment was fixed at 635 when it ought to have been 835.

Brigadier O. L. Prior-Palmer: Brigadier O. L. Prior-Palmer (Worthing) indicated dissent.

Mr. Wigg: The hon. and gallant Member shakes his head. I hope that he will have an opportunity to tell me that what I have said is wrong. The Minister referred to the figure of 11,000 which, with 50 battalions, would mean 220 on the ordinary establishment.
Now let us turn to the actual recruiting figures. The Minister has had a little bit of luck. I am never opposed to anyone having a little bit of luck so long as he does not whine or blame it on to the Almighty when that element of luck turns against him. The first bit of luck was that the Government took the advice which has been given them so frequently from this side of the Committee and switched over to the long-service engagement. It is stated that the introduction of the minimum six-year engagement has been fully justified by results. In reading the Explanatory Statement of the Secretary of State, it is fascinating to see that at long last man-years are quoted instead of the numbers of men, which shows that even Conservative Governments can learn.
I have never held the view that when the present Minister of Defence took office the Almighty moved over on to his side, although the right hon. Gentleman seems to think so.

Brigadier Prior-Palmer: Blasphemy.

Mr. Wigg: The right hon. Member for Flint, West (Mr. Birch), to whose eloquence I pay tribute, and which I can never hope to emulate, referred last year to the statement by the Minister of Defence in paragraph I of the White Paper that the world was poised between


the hope of total peace and the fear of total war—between Armageddon, on the one hand, and the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, on the other; and I agree. Our state in this sinful vale of tears is not always a choice of Armageddon or total peace, but somewhere in between. We should face that fact when organising our defence policy and so organise ourselves as to command sufficient power that our people may live in dignity and earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow and by their courage and brains.
As I see it, the result of our defence policy will mean that we shall still have Trooping the Colour, our troops will still be armed with the same old "bundook" which their forefathers carried during the South African war, and our women and children will be hauling rickshaws up and down Whitehall so that Chinese ladies and gentlemen may witness the ceremony. That is what will happen if we do not realise that we are not now faced with the cold war with which we were faced two or three years ago; that we are poised between total war and peace and must make the best use of our limited resources, which is something we are not doing.
That is why we have to fall back on the kind of illusions in which hopes are based on Blue Streak, about which there has been no decision taken to produce. The basic problem is that of raising sufficient manpower so that we may be able to deal with problems which may be presented in Nyasaland and the Middle East even before they arise. What people do not seem to understand is that a brigade group moved into an area after the trouble has started is no substitute for a battalion on the spot, because the presence of such a battalion would have prevented trouble.
There is no better example of the hopes of the Minister of Defence than in the Government's statement about recruiting policy. I have never been able to convince myself that the Minister of Defence had found the secret of recruitment. I have looked at the figures over and over again, irrespective of the Grigg Committee's calculations, and I have always made the problem come out, as the Committee brought it out, with all the advantages of the services of a great Department of

State, that we had to get one in four of our young men to enlist.
From my further studies I reached the conclusion last year that there was another factor at work. About last December there was the normal impact which follows an increase of pay. If one looks at the alterations in the rates of pay and alterations of terms of service one can find a direct correlation in recruiting, but in the passing months the impact wears off. In other words, I have always held the view, and I hold it now, that there are in this country only a given number of young men who find satisfaction in service with the Armed Forces.
The oddest thing about it is that we can increase the rates of pay or even reduce them, as happened twice between the wars, and the long-term effect on recruitment is almost negligible. It is like taking a piece of elastic. One pulls it out and lets go and automatically it will contract to the same size again. I am not convinced that the Minister of Defence has struck a recruiting "gusher".
I kept on studying this problem, seeking to understand it, and talking to people likely to have the same interest as myself, and I put a Question to the Secretary of State for War, the Answer to which is to be found in the OFFICIAL REPORT of 24th February. The Answer to my Question received very distinguished notice from my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), who is, unfortunately, not able to be with us today, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey). They all looked at the Answer and, like myself, they were struck with the significance of the recruiting returns in 1957–58.
What is it, for example, that makes more young men in Stoke-in-Trent tend to join the Army whereas in Surbiton only half the number of young men joined the Army in 1958 that joined it in 1957? I have always found it difficult to establish a direct and explainable correlation between recruiting and unemployment. In fact, I have always failed to do it. I studied the Appendix to the Grigg Committee's Report, which reached the same conclusion that one cannot explain it in this way. I think myself that the explanations are these.
First, we are dealing with a different age group. The unemployment statistics which one gets from the Ministry of Labour deal with an age group from 18 to 21. In dealing with the age group concerned in joining the Army, apart from the National Service, it is from 20 to 27. The other difficulty is that the recruiting areas are not the same. If we take a place like London, with its very great recruiting centre at Great Scotland Yard, we find that the men come from a very wide catchment area. They come from all over the British Isles and they are very catholic in their choice of an arm of the Service.
To try to explain this problem, I asked the research department of the Library of the House of Commons—and I should like to pay tribute to the help which it always readily and efficiently gives—to take eight centres where recruiting rose and eight centres where it fell. The difficulty that came out of this is that one finds that in places where recruiting fell, unemployment rose. We cannot get a direct correlation. We find that in places where recruiting fell, like London, Surbiton and places with great naval and military traditions, like Chatham, Brighton, Bournemouth and Reading, the one thing which they all had in common was that the number of unemployed in those areas was comparatively small. That is to say, in every case the number of unemployed was under 3,000. There again, I am not suggesting that there is a direct answer or a direct correlation, or that one can prove it.
In my efforts to establish the facts, I have been to the Ministry of Labour and it says roughly what the Grigg Committee's Report says, that it is unable to find this correlation that one would expect to find, that it is reasonable to assume that some young men join the Army when they cannot get a job. We cannot prove it. The factor operating is opportunity and density of unemployment in relation to the total employed in the areas. This is what seems to accord with the common sense of the problem. A young man who is working and perhaps drawing overtime pay then goes on to short time and finds that the job which he thought was a reasonably secure one, offering an avenue for promotion, is a dead-end job. He is

young, ambitious and vigorous and seeks opportunities elsewhere. He cannot find them and he joins the Army.
I see that an hon. Member opposite shakes his head. I am not saying that I am right. I am not sure. What I am certain of is that neither is the Minister of Defence sure. While I may be wrong, I want the Committee to face up to the fact that if I am right the Minister of Defence is wrong. We have established that the right hon. Gentleman took a gamble because he did not know that this was going to happen in December, 1957. It happened afterwards. It happened even before the pay increase was given. We cannot establish that the recruiting figures are going to improve.
We have been told by an hon. Member opposite that the Minister of Defence had planned it. If he had planned it, it means that in December, 1957, the Minister of Defence knew that the Government's policy was directed towards producing unemployment. That is what the Government have to face up to. On the evidence of the Grigg Committee's Report, the recruiting figures were 50 per cent. of what they ought to be. By the Government's own action the ceiling of 15,000 is less than it ought to be. Anyone who has studied this problem knows that the minimum number of men required for the discharge of the commitments which the Government are carrying is at least 200,000.
Over and above that, there is the evidence which I have dug out and which must be well known to Ministers. They have to face up to the fact that f I am right, they have given an increase of pay and pushed the charge on Vote 1 up to the very limit of the ceiling at the expense of equipment.
What are the prospects of getting these recruits? This is an old story. I have always held the view that the greatest curse from which an Army can suffer is to find itself with units under strength. I had thought that in the Government's scheme of reorganisation they had at least learned the lesson that if they were to try to carry all the burdens on the basis of 49 battalions they would make sure that those 49 battalions were up to strength.
One of the major causes of the disaster of Suez was under-strength battalions. If we wait until the emergency comes and


then try to build up unit strength, it will need on present form several months before a battalion is at its full fighting efficiency. If we had had 49 battalions. teeth-armed, highly trained and highly efficient and up to establishment, it might have been different.
It has always seemed to me that the Government's policy means this: half of the Strategic Reserve is in Germany, always available to be flown out here or there, according to where trouble may occur. It gave me a great shock to study this White Paper, after looking at the facts on which it is based, and to realise that not only had the Government gambled with the past but that they were gambling with the future.
I have said many times before, and I repeat it now—I hope that I am wrong, but even if I am the only voice in the Committee I shall not say I am wrong—that I was right in 1952 about the recruiting figures. After all the efforts which I have been able to make I have found nothing that refutes the basis of an assessment of recruiting on something like the lines of Appendix A of the Grigg Report. We have found the formula which pushes expenditure up to a maximum while the resulting defence is at a minimum.

4.12 p.m.

Mr. William Yates: I cannot follow the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) in his commentary on rickshaw strategy, in which he is expert. I want to raise two simple matters concerning my constituency and the Territorial Army.
The Government are responsible for the staffing of one of the largest ordnance depots in Great Britain, at Donnington. It is a combined ordnance depot. From time to time there have been reports that there would not be sufficient finance to maintain this depot and it appeared that changes were envisaged. I was not surprised at the sort of charge or remark being made by a Member of the Opposition. That is quite agreeable to me if it has any foundation in fact. This debate provides an opportunity for me to ask the Minister whether it is Government policy to reduce the garrison and staff at the Donnington depot. These people have given a great deal of their Service life to the Army. Their sons go into the Services, and Donnington is a very good

place for the recruiting of Service personnel. It would be a great pity if changes were made now.
I am glad to say that about a year ago a new system of equipment for accounting and a new punch-card system was installed, at great expense. The redundancy that threatened at that time turned out to be one clerk. I hope that the Minister will tell us a little more of what he intends to do about this combined ordnance depot. The people there have spent nearly thirty years in the area. The depot is commanded by a brigadier.
It is always extraordinary at these depots that when one goes into a number of huts one sees Army equipment being broken down. This is the system of recovery. Large quantities of old wireless equipment cannot be sold, for example. It must be broken up and reduced to brass and waste. I hope that the Minister will bear in mind that the charge often made against the Department is that the people at the depot are wasteful. It is unfounded. When one goes into the larger stores one is appalled at the vast sort of equipment that the Army requires at any moment.

The Temporary Chairman (Sir James Duncan): I hope that the hon. Gentleman will confine his remarks to Vote I, which is on the pay of military staff and has nothing to do with civilian staff or equipment.

Mr. Yates: The military staff are in command of the Donnington depot and a reduction in its numbers would reflect on the rest of the military establishment. When the Minister replies, I hope that he will bear this in mind and tell us that there is to be no reduction in the military staff or in the security of the military personnel at Donnington or those who work under military orders.
The second problem concerns the garrison in Berlin. Recently, a Parliamentary delegation went there and we met the Army commander of the garrison. All of us were particularly struck with the remarks made by the people in Berlin, that is, the West Berlin citizens, about how much they admired the calibre, standard and the way in which Her Majesty's troops in the garrison in Berlin had been conducting themselves over the last four years. This is a great credit to the Army. We should realise that the people in West Berlin consider


that our garrison there is one of their main outposts of freedom and one of the things which gives them a real sense of security. I would not like to hear that Her Majesty's Government intend to make any alteration whatever in the garrison in Berlin. The tributes paid by the West German politicians in Berlin, and in Bonn, to the British Army are justified. I hope that the Minister will answer these two points which I have raised.

4.19 p.m.

Mr. F. J. Bellenger (Bassatlaw): I wish to make only a brief excursion into this subject. The Committee should recognise the consistency and persistency of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) in the matter of recruiting. It will be churlish of us to deny that he has been right on the question of the short-service as opposed to the long-service engagement.
At one time I was rather enamoured of the short-service engagement idea, particularly of the three-year engagement. Now, looking back after the event, I think that my hon. Friend has been proved right. I only wish that the Government, who have access to all the information, had come to this conclusion before. They are recruiting a Regular Army. From the beginning we have never liked conscripts. We did not like them, although they were a necessity of the war.
My second point—and I say this in relation to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) in opening the debate—is that I am not at all sure that the innovation that we have made in cutting down the Service Estimates debates like this is the right one. I suggest to the Government and to the usual channels that they might reconsider this. Before the war, of course, we did not have a Minister of Defence and we were able to discuss the Service Estimates in all their phases and in all their details. Judging from the debates we have had this year, it seems to me that we have now come to, as it were, the conclusion of the debate, which will not be very effective.
Hon. Members may get answers to some of the points which they raise, but these seem to me to be taken out of

their context. The proper context should be the Minister presenting his Service Estimates. That might mean that we would have to go on a little longer, but judging by recent events it looks as if we are now settling down to the concise manner of dealing with Service Estimates that we had before the war.
I wish to pay a tribute to the War Office for the glossy part of its Report. It may be that the War Office has taken notice of certain other glossy publications and is now giving illustrations of what it is trying to say in typescript. I would welcome more of this, in the same way as I have always welcomed the opportunity for hon. Members to visit the three Services and see for themselves on the spot what the Services are talking about. I dare not say anything about equipment at this stage, but at least, in that way, it would be possible for hon. Members to know what the Services were talking about concerning equipment.
That is all I wish to say. My only reason for speaking today is to ask the Government to consider afresh whether the system that we are adopting now, and which was in the nature of an experiment, is the right system to achieve the best co-ordinated debate on the Service Estimates.

4.22 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. Hugh Fraser): I should like, first, to thank the right hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) for the compliment that he paid to the War Office. That is a building in which compliments are not as frequent as brickbats, especially when delivered from the House of Commons. Secondly, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. W. Yates) for the proper tribute he paid to our forces in Berlin.
I will try to deal briefly with the various points which have been raised. The hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) raised the question of hire-purchase agreements of soldiers in Cyprus who may be moved and will leave behind equipment which they cannot take with them and on which they have incurred debts. In the first place, the movement from Cyprus is not yet clear. As the hon. Member said, we are extremely gratified that the settlement should have been reached, but we are not yet certain at what rate individual units will move.


Secondly, we do not have exact details of the scope of the problem, but it is being investigated both by General Darling and by his staff in Cyprus and it is being considered from our point of view here with other Departments and we have it well in mind. It is impossible to go further at this early stage.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey asked about the National Service grants and pointed, rightly, to the fact that these will rise this year by £500,000 although fewer National Service men will be called up. The answer is fairly simple. The extra £500,000 results partly from the fact that with improved standards of living, there tends to be a rather larger allotment per capita. What is more important is that at this stage we are calling up a large number of men who were deferred and who, during their deferment, have undertaken various obligations, including marriage and children.
The hon. Member, quite properly, compared the sums paid out by the Royal Air Force for education for other ranks and the amount paid by the Army. The answer is that we trust that the change is growing. The amount doubled last year. In discussing last year's Estimates, the hon. Member asked for the figures to be presented in the way that they are presented today. I am glad that the hon. Member has raised the point. This debate will draw attention to it.
The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), whom we are pleased to see here today, in spite of the slight fracas he seems to have had with the higher and lower command of his own military sections on the benches opposite, raised various points. The hon. Member is the most ingenious of all Parliamentarians. At one moment, I thought that we would be able to have a debate on Nyasaland on Vote 1, Subhead F, but I must resist that temptation.
The first point made by the hon. Member about colonial forces was the abandonment of the teaching of English and the use of Hausa, Swahili and Chinyanja as the lingua franca. That is an inevitable tendency under the present movement of these various peoples towards self-government and the training of these forces has become the responsibility of the Governments in the Commonwealth and the Colonial Territories.
The hon. Member raised the wider issue of British officers and other ranks in the Nyasaland battalions. I am informed that there are two medical officers attached to these battalions and three warrant officers. The Ghana Agreement is not applicable. These men are not seconded; they are merely loaned.

Mr. Wigg: I would be obliged if the hon. Gentleman would tell the Committee what is the difference between loaning and seconding.

Mr. Fraser: This is a more informal arrangement; loaning to a Colonial Government as opposed to seconding to a Commonwealth country. It is a technical difference. The main point that the hon. Member sought to achieve was that there was some difference of policy on the part of Her Majesty's Government concerning the employment of these soldiers. Of course, there is no difference. Technically, the responsibility for law and order in Nyasaland is the responsibility of the Governor. The Governor sent for the Federation troops and the Federation troops therefore arrived to deal with the emergency.
The hon. Member then dealt with recruiting. The fact that he was a prime mover in the movement away from the short-service to the longer-service commission should never be forgotten on either side of the Committee. I still consider that the points that the hon. Member was making are not borne out by facts, as he is usually the first to admit. The hon. Member spoke again of his suspicions for the reason. If his suspicions are proved correct, it would, indeed, be an unfortunate and untoward situation. All the evidence in my possession points in other directions. After all, one's decisions and judgment can be based only upon the evidence available.
The hon. Member spoke of the establishment of infantry battalions. I should like to correct his reading of the speech of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence. The actual figure used by my right hon. Friend was 11,000 for all fighting units. Of those 11,000, about 8,500 will be going towards infantry teeth arms and the remainder will be employed in teeth units other than infantry.
The hon. Member attacked my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence concerning the change in the establishment.


Like my right hon. Friend, the hon. Member, with his great experience, will realise that one's thoughts in this direction must be a harmonious process of finding what is best to be done and what is the most efficient size of the individual unit.
The hon. Member then went on to the question of the relationship between unemployment and recruiting. In 1955, an exercise was carried out by the Director of Manpower Planning at the War Office, considering figures of unemployment and recruiting over ninety-five years. He found precisely the same absence of any relationship between these figures as the Grigg Report showed in Appendix A, to which the hon. Member referred. One can have a great deal of fun with the figures which the hon. Member procured from the Ministry of Labour. One of the more mysterious is that while the number of unemployed at Omagh has risen by 58, the number of recruits has increased by 104.
This soft of figure can prove anything or nothing. One must go back to the long-term trends over the ninety-five years' examination which we carried out and also the examination between the wars shown at the back of the Grigg Report. The present figures show that during 1963 we shall be well over 180,000, extracting an average over the last few months and projecting the current figures.
My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin asked a question which was more or less out of order, and perhaps I may refer to it more or less in code. Perhaps I can simplify the proceedings by saying that he need have no fear; there is no redundancy, and the question of the small redundancy which we expected has been settled.

Mr. Wigg: I am not altogether satisfied with that reply. Dealing with the question of Nyasaland, the Minister cannot escape the problem by saying that in one case it is a loan, in another case it is a secondment, and there is a technical difference between them. In Ghana there is a military adviser, a very distinguished officer, Major-General Paley, who has done yeoman service in the cause of his country and in the way in which he has carried out his duties since Ghana became a Dominion.
It is explicitly laid down by the Government that if the Ghana Government ever follow politics which are not acceptable to Her Majesty's Government they can withdraw Major-General Paley. The Minister can say that he is loaned or that he is seconded. Indeed, the Minister can stand on his head about it. The fact remains that there was an arrangement which enables the Government to withdraw him if they do not accept the politics adopted by Ghana.
It is highly inconvenient for the Minister and the Government to discover that there are British officers in Nyasaland. It does not matter whether there are two or three, or 200 or 300. The situation arises even if there is only one, because the fact is that Sir Roy Welensky has declined to accept the services of a British battalion in Nyasaland.

Mr. Fraser: That is not true. On what does the hon. Member base that statement?

Mr. Wigg: I base it on a statement in The Times that the K.A.R. had been offered and had been put under six hours' notice, but that Sir Roy Welensky had said, "I do not want them".

Mr. Fraser: The hon. Member is making a very serious statement. He has said that Sir Roy Welensky said that he did not want this battalion. The reason was that he had sufficient forces to cope with the situation. There is no question of objecting to British battalions.

Mr. Wigg: At the time that federation was being discussed Lord Salisbury told a Press conference that the position of the King's African Rifles was unaffected by federation.

The Temporary Chairman: Order. I think that the hon. Member is getting some way from Vote 1. I do not think that the King's African Rifles are on this Vote.

Mr. Wigg: It is not for me to come into conflict with the Chair, but under Vote I and Appropriations-in-Aid the Government pay a contribution here. I am talking not about the K.A.R. as such, but about the British officers and N.C.O.s whom the hon. Member euphemistically said are "loaned." I am using the word "seconded", but we are talking about the same thing.

The Temporary Chairman: It is not in order to discuss Appropriations-in-Aid. If the pay of these officers comes from the Colonial Governments or from the Federal Government, it is not under this Vote.

Mr. Fraser: These officers are paid by this Government and, in return, we receive money from the Colonial Government.

Mr. Wigg: That is the point I was seeking to make. They are borne on this Vote.
What I want to establish is that when I use the word "secondment" and the hon. Member uses the word "loan" we are talking about one and the same thing. For the purpose of my argument, it does not matter whether there are one or three, 300 or 3,000. The fact is that the existence of British officers and N.C.O.s in Nyasaland makes the Government responsible for the defence policies which are being pursued. That is a very awkward position, and the hon. Member cannot laugh it off.
I want next to turn to the question of lack of precision in the use of English by the Secretary of State for War. I am not responsible for it—he is an Etonian —and I can only regret it. The fact is that he talked about infantry. I was fair enough to say that I assumed that he was talking about infantry of the line. If he talks about infantry and then about fighting units, with my board school education as opposed to his public school education am I making a wild guess when I assume that he is talking about the same thing?
If he is not, and I am in error, what is the difference between us? It is not one of principle. The Under-Secretary of State says that the figure is not 11,000, but 8,000. There are still 50 battalions for that purpose, and the figures of the establishment were reduced not by 220, but by 160. If that is what he says, I am prepared to accept it. I am prepared to accept the proposition that the Minister of Defence knew full well that the minimum establishment for the infantry of the line should be 800 but that for political reasons he fixed the ceiling at a point which meant that they could have only 635. The Minister of Defence therefore gambled with the security of this country for the political convenience of

his party. If the hon. Member accepts that, I am satisfied.

Mr. Fraser: The hon. Member's second charge concerned battalions on active service and on reserve being below strength. What matters is that by being able to raise their strength we can avoid all the horror and trouble of cross-posting, and the efficiency of the Army is greatly increased. There is no change in the number of major units which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence established.
The hon. Member also tried to make the case that the position of British troops in Ghana and the position of British troops in Nyasaland is the same. In the one case sovereignty must rest in this country in respect of the Colonial Territory concerned. The position is different in a Commonwealth country. In one case I have used the word "loan" to a Colonial Territory, whereas in the other case I have used an alternative form of words. There is a big difference because in one case there is an agreement with an independent Government in Ghana while in the other case we are dealing with a Colonial Territory.

Mr. Wigg: The hon. Member is now admitting that Her Majesty's Government have a direct responsibility for law and order and the defence of Nyasaland.

Mr. Fraser: I explained in my previous speech that the Governor of Nyasaland is responsible for law and order in that territory. As is well known, he accepted the offer from the Federation of troops to go to his support. That is a clear situation. I have said nothing different in this speech.

Mr. Wigg: It also follows that if the Government are not satisfied with the way in which volunteers from Southern Rhodesia are behaving they have the right to withdraw the British officers and N.C.O.s who are there.

Mr. Fraser: Of course the Government have the right, but is it likely that there would be conflict when the powers of the Government here are delegated to the Governor in Nyasaland?

Mr. Wigg: I sincerely hope that there will be, because in his behaviour Sir Roy Welensky is qualifying to take a place


beside Goering, the only difference being that one set fire to the Reichstag and the other discovered a plot.

Mr. John Biggs-Davison: A number of allegations have been made about the character and conduct of the Federal troops now serving in Nyasaland. Is there any evidence to show that the conduct and character of those troops should be thus stigmatised?

Mr. Wigg: That question was presumably addressed to me.
The hon. Member has come into the Chamber a little late. What we are here establishing is that the Government's alibi that they have no responsibility for events in Nyasaland is very thin. There are British officers and N.C.O.s serving in Nyasaland for whom the Government are responsible. Therefore, there is no need to go to the artifice of putting down Motions regretting that Her Majesty's Government did not protest. The Opposition have the right to challenge the Government directly on Nyasaland, because the Government are responsible for the safety and security of British officers and N.C.O.s serving there. That is the simple point.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £125,260,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the pay, etc., of the Army, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Vote 2. Reserve Forces, Territorial Army and Cadet Forces

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £18,210,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the Reserve Forces (to a number not exceeding 371,500, all ranks, including a number not exceeding 360,000 other ranks), Territorial Army (to a number not exceeding 330,900, all ranks), Cadet Forces and Malta Territorial Force, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

4.41 p.m.

Mr. Mellish: We notice again that the Government are able to say that the figures are greatly improved. I understand that for the Territorial Army they are up to about 100,000 men now, which is very gratifying. I am one of those who believe that, provided good use is made of the Territorial Army, it is a very

important part of our defence forces. I also think that the time is certainly overdue when the trades union movement ought to play a much stronger part in the recruitment of some of their members into the Territorial Army. I am on two recruiting committees, and each of them is dominated by the employers. The trade unions ought to play a much stronger part, and I shall certainly do what I can to encourage them so to do, because the Territorial Army belongs to all of us and is not the prerogative of a certain section of the community. The people I should like to see on the Committees are those whom I think most of us on this side of the Committee represent.
I am very unhappy about the rôle of the Territorial Army. We are told that it is now to do some mobile civil defence work. May we learn something more about this? How do the Government see the future of the Territorial Army? Is it to go on from mobile civil defence? Is it visualised that the Territorial Army will take over perhaps one day almost all civil defence? If so, the Government ought to say so.
We are moving towards a Regular Army now with new weapons and new equipment. At least we hope to have them by 1963. I do not want to go over the old ground about what happened in the past on equipment and weapons. What about the equipping of the Territorial Army? What sort of weapons will they have? May we have some information to show what the Government have in mind for the future of the Territorial Army?

4.43 p.m.

Mr. W. Yates: I should like to make three points concerning the Territorial Army. Two of them were raised in the Adjournment debate on 1st August, 1958. The first is mentioned in the OFFICIAL REPORT for 1st August, 1958, at column 1790. It is the question of more junior officers for the Territorial Army. At a recent Territorial Army exercise at Chester one of the senior officers drew the attention of all concerned to the desire and need for additional young men to come forward as volunteers with the object of eventually becoming officers in the Territorial Army. It would be a good thing if, when the Under-Secretary


of State replies to the debate, he could give some information on the way in which the War Office intends to help.
If the Territorial Army is to carry out the duties at present allotted to it, it will need more junior officers. Whereas I as a Territorial Army officer congratulate the Government on the splendid recruiting figures for the Territorial Army, I would add that it would be a good thing if the recruitment of junior officers for the Territorial Army could be examined. This devolves very much on employers, on nationalised industries and on the trades unions. If this country wants to have a Territorial Army, then some of these great firms or institutions must make sacrifices and must allow these officers and men freedom to do their fortnight's training. No Territorial Army officer is worth wasting a penny on unless lie attends the annual camp. I hope that the Minister will look at the matter again.
Secondly, I wish to raise the question of better training centres. I know that this will cost additional money, but for some time now the Territorial Army Association for Shropshire has been asking the Minister to carry out the plans which he has had in mind for a good number of years to reorganise training in Shropshire and to concentrate it at a training centre in Sundorne Road. Shrewsbury. There are camps such as Camp E at Donnington. I do not mind mentioning them again. I believe that those places are not suitable as training centres. I should like to hear very much more from the Under-Secretary about the improvements that he intends to make if this money is granted.
My third and final point is about pay for the Territorials. In the Adjournment debate on 1st August, 1958, I stated that I felt that the pay of very junior officers in the Territorial Army was unsatisfactory. I gave some reasons at that time, and I can state them again. When an officer has attained the rank of captain or major in the Territorial Army he should be fairly well established in civil life and, therefore, his training or his extra expenses should not fall too heavily upon him. But the very junior officer on the threshold of his career, probably young and married with a family, needs more pay.
I made this point to the Under-Secretary's predecessor, and he made what I thought was a rather unfortunate remark. He asked me whether I would be prepared to see a junior officer in the Territorial Army during his fortnight or his weekend training receiving more than a lieutenant in the Regular Army. I will give him my answer—yes. The Minister should examine this matter again. If he wants to get an adequate supply of the right type of junior Territorial Army officers, he should examine the pay rates, even if it means some reduction in the pay of higher ranks.
I hope that other hon. Members of the Committee, especially hon. Gentlemen opposite, will support me in my plea. I hope that those in private industry, in the Government or in nationalised industries, will support the Territorial Army, and ensure that we have people in it to make it worth while calling it an Army and worth while spending this money for which we are being asked tonight.

4.49 p.m.

Mr. Roy Mason: I wish to deal specifically with the Territorial Army. I wish to raise my voice on the question of procedure, and I hope that I can do it on this Vote very briefly. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has already referred to it and so has my right hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger). I was somewhat perturbed, because they disagreed with our present procedure. We have improved the procedure to a great extent in recent years. We now have a system of a two-day defence debate and a day allotted to each of the Service Estimates. We can examine the individual Votes and raise specific points with the three Ministers concerned.
The procedure that has been adopted in the last few years has improved things a lot. The two-day defence debate has given us an opportunity to look at defence as a whole, while the debates on the Service Estimates have given those hon. Members interested in one or other of the three Services an opportunity to see how each fits into the defensive role, and to raise specific matters on practically every Vote.
The Minister no doubt feels just as pleased about the recruitment to the "Terriers" as he does about that to the Regular Army. My hon. Friend the


Member for Dudley, who has a fanatical urge for being a statistical worm and chasing the records, often wriggles round and gets some very fascinating results, and we have been obliged to him on many occasions. However, I do not think that that was necessary here in order to find out the major reason for the increase in the Regular and Territorial Army recruiting figures.
Unemployment cannot be dissociated from that increase. It is one of the major causes. In past years, whenever unemployment increased, Regular Army recruitment increased, and I do not think that it was worth while chasing through all the records to find out what is, to me, an obvious fact—

Mr. H. Fraser: It may seem obvious to the hon. Gentleman but a study of the graphs produced by the Grigg Committee, those produced by others, and the figures I have myself brought out, will show that he is not talking sense. There is no direct statistical connection.

The Temporary Chairman: I think that we dealt with that on the last Vote.

Mr. Mason: I am obliged to you, Sir James. Before the war, there was no difficulty in getting recruits to the Regular Army. That was due to people being thrown on the scrapheap of unemployment by declining industries. We see the same thing happening again. As industries slow down, people lose their employment and go into the Regular Forces. Allied to that, of course, is the fact that they are attracted by the better pay and conditions now prevailing.
The Explanatory Note says of the Territorial Army:
The current rôle of the Territorial Army on the outbreak of war is … (b) to provide a number of divisions and other formations and units with the initial task of home defence in all its aspects …
The Under-Secretary was present during the debate on the Army Estimates when I intervened to say how pleased I was that the Territorial Army is now to take over the duties of the mobile defence corps in civil defence. That is very encouraging and interesting, and I am very much in favour of it. I should like the War Office to go a little further. I want to see the Territorial Army, with its growing numbers, gradually increase its civil defence rôle to
… home defence in all its aspects ….

Although many local authorities and public-spirited men have in the past done a great deal in maintaining civil defence in face of its many critics, I cannot see them operating what is called civil defence in the event of nuclear warfare. One thermo-nuclear bomb over one built-up area would create such panic in the minds of the citizens that it would require the discipline of the Armed Forces and not the discipline of those now in civil defence to restore order from chaos. There would be panic.
People would be streaming from the stricken city. With all due respect to the many who have done the job so far, I cannot see them having the command, the measure of discipline necessary to tackle that situation. Therefore, I hope that the Under-Secretary will spend some little time in giving us some idea of how the Territorial Army's rôle in civil defence will increase. It is something that I favour, and I hope that the War Office will encourage it.

4.55 p.m.

Mr. James Simmons: Following on what my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) has just said about the Territorial Army, I would point out that I complained during the general debate that under this scheme the Territorials would probably become no more than pioneers and scavengers. That is not the rôle of those men. They join to become soldiers—and proper soldiers. If we are to maintain the present very good figures of recruiting, we should not do anything to harm their prestige.
We do not know what civil defence will be able to do in the circumstances of modern warfare, but I believe that local civilian volunteers, especially when led by men of local public reputation, would have a far greater power to control the population than would soldiers brought in from outside the area to do civil defence duties. I hope that, during the debate, the Army's function in civil defence can be made clear, so that we may know whether it will mean a cheapening of the prestige of the Territorial Army.
On the issue of procedure, I intervene reluctantly. Our Estimates debates are becoming a farce. It is all very well for my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley to say that we can discuss every Vote, but there just is not time to do so. Had


he been here, as were some of us—like my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede)—in 1929–31, and since 1945, he would know that we used to debate the Estimates until 3 o'clock and 4 o'clock in the morning, and even then we had not exhausted all the subjects.
My hon. and very dear Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) is not without blame in this respect, because he sold the pass in the first place over the Army Act. Until then we could discuss Army problems at great length. I mention this to explain my reason for not having been so prominent at this stage of the Estimates debates. I spoke for half an hour on Vote A, but as many hon. Members were squeezed out of that discussion I felt that I should not, in fairness, speak for too long now. However, I did want to protest against the inadequacy of these discussions.
It is scandalous to expect us to take nine, ten or eleven Votes in three hours. Hon. Members have to be the public's watchdogs on expenditure, and the watchdogs of the Service men's rights and privileges. To expect them to be able to do that in the miserable three hours allotted is absolutely ridiculous. I hope that before we discuss further Service Estimates, some new method will be found—through the usual channels, through unusual channels, or through new channels—to restore some of the rights of back-benchers to discuss the Estimates in greater detail than has been possible during the last two years.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Mason: If I may say so, we never exhausted the time on the Air Estimates, the Army Estimates or the Navy Estimates and, if hon. Members wish, the debate is not confined to three hours today. We can continue discussing the Army Estimates for as long as we wish or, at least, until ten o'clock. We are not confined to three hours. This is an informal discussion which is taking place, and, if we wish to continue with the Army Estimates, we can.

Mr. Simmons: It is all very well for my hon. Friend to say that, but in those debates hon. Members knew that it would be futile for them to come in. The Army Estimates nearly went their length, but hon. Members knew that, if they came in, there

would be no chance of their getting into the debate, so they stayed away. We have killed the interest in the Estimates by the procedure we now adopt. I want to see that interest revived.

The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Gordon Touche): I think that we should now return to the Vote before the Committee.

5.1 p.m.

Mr. Ede: I intervene only because of certain things said by the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. W. Yates). I am sorry he is not here, but I gave him no notice that I intended to make any comment, so I have no complaint. The hon. Gentleman spoke about the position of officers, especially junior officers, in the Territorial Army. I have had representations made to me from time to time on behalf of young men in my constituency, and I urge the Under-Secretary to remember, when it is a question of meeting the expenses they have to incur when going away to camp, that it is very desirable that something more in the way of remuneration should be made available for them. I do not advocate what I understood the hon. Member for The Wrekin to suggest—that we should take a bit off the captain and the major and distribute it among the people below the rank of captain. As he said, those are men who are beginning to establish themselves in their civilian employment. Also, they have young families and, on occasions, to my knowledge, the sacrifices they have to make in such circumstances in going away to camp are quite considerable.
I speak as one who joined the old volunteer Army as long ago as 1899. I believe that, with the exception of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), I am the Member of the House who can look back to the remotest era of military service. I hope that, under the new regime, the Territorial Army will excite the interest and enthusiasm of many young men who think that a knowledge of the way to defend the country is something which every citizen ought to have but who, because of domestic or other circumstances, cannot contemplate a career in a professional army. I believe that the maintenance of the Territorial Army and the understanding that it will perform some useful military service are essential


to the defence of a free country, particularly a country such as ours. I hope that the Government will give every possible encouragement to it.
I appeal to all those mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) and to others who ought to take an interest in seeing that the people over whom they have some control and for whom they have a responsibility are given an opportunity to discharge this duty of a citizen. I include the local governing bodies in this, for 1 have sometimes been rather shocked at the way in which some local governing bodies, sometimes for ideological reasons —I think that that is the proper way to phrase it—have not been as helpful as they might have been to men on the clerical and industrial staffs who have wished to have the opportunity to participate in this form of voluntary national service.
Everyone should bear in mind that the young man who gives of his time and energy to this Service has to make some social sacrifices which are not inconsiderable. For instance, if it is known that he will have to attend battalion drills on a number of Saturdays during the cricket season, his place in the cricket team may sometimes be in jeopardy. Although my memories now go back, as I have hinted, to a time which everyone present must regard as completely antediluvian, I assure hon. Members that these are things today which ought to be borne in mind. I hope that anyone who is approached by a young man over whose circumstances he has some control will be willing to give that young man what help he can to enable him to perform what I regard as a highly patriotic duty, with as little inconvenience to the individual as possible. I am quite sure that such an employer will find that he will have no less willing and helpful an employee as a result of anything he does along those lines.

5.8 p.m.

Mr. Wigg: The matter of our procedure has been mentioned again and my name was specifically referred to, so perhaps I might say a word or two about it. The problem which faces the Committee is the problem of keeping the Army Act up to date without taking up too much of the time of the House of

Commons. In 1951, we were faced with an Army Act which was eighty years out of date. The Army Act is not only a code of law; it is a code of discipline. It is what binds the Army together; it gives a man his pay and gives him a square deal. We must remember, when we give enormous authority and power of life and death to a man's commanding officer, as we must, that, at the same time, after giving that power, we are bound to make absolutely sure that machinery exists to dig out any complaint or any unjustified working of the Act.
When we dealt with this matter yearly, it had the result of keeping the Committee up. By tradition, the Government, by not moving the Closure on Vote A, were kept here. We have not given anything away now. I would remind my hon. Friend the Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Simmons) that we put it in suspense for a period of five years. This procedure has gone on for three years and, in a year or two, the Government will once again have to remit the Army Act to a Select Committee.

Mr. Bellenger: Surely that is quite separate from the Service Estimates.

Mr. Wigg: They are tied up one with the other. On Vote A, the Government are continuing the practice of not moving the Closure and then they get the Vote under the 9.30 p.m. Guillotine later. The other difficulty arises because there are three separate Service Estimates. If one looks at page 735 of Erskine May, one sees the difficulty; no method has ever been found of taking the three Services together except on a Government Motion. If one takes a Government Motion, one then has an extra hour or two, by leave of the Government, whereas the old procedure, as we did it in 1951, was not by leave of the Government. We put down a sufficient number of Amendments to bring Government business to a standstill. That is why the Government appointed a Select Committee—not out of love for as but because there was no alternative.
Having had our two-day debate, as it were, on the overall policy, and then the three, as it were, Second Reading debates on the Service Estimates, what happens today is an extension of the redress of grievances. This is why I resented, not as an individual but on behalf of the House of Commons, any apparent


arrangement—I do not want to stress it —which took away the rights of the backbencher, because the right the backbencher exercises here he exercises on behalf of every humble man in the Army.
The Army is the kind of institution in which one always remembers the things that go wrong. These things are heralded across the front page, but nobody remembers the good things which the Army does. I entirely agree on this subject with Lord Montgomery. The most efficient Department in Whitehall is the War Office. One has only to put the Colonial Office in juxtaposition with it and consider the mess which that Department is making to see the truth of that statement.
We are not aiming our observations at the present Secretary of State. When we criticise, we are helping him, because we are keeping the Department on its Toes. That is why the räle played by the back-bencher on these occasions is of such paramount importance.

Mr. Simmons: Will my hon. Friend say how he would get over the difficulty about squeezing out the other two Departments? Would he have one day for each Department?

Mr. Wigg: Yes. I have long held that the existing procedure has become obsolescent if only because we are discussing many things which are on the edge of secrecy. There are many things which a Minister would say to us if we were behind closed doors but which he would not say here.
I had the privilege of serving for two and a half years on the Select Committee on the Army. It was borne of the most bitter party strife. The terms of surrender were taken by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) who came to the House in the early hours of the morning to accept them. But once a Select Committee had been appointed and once the doors had closed and the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) had been appointed Chairman there was never any question of Labour or Conservative. What voting took place was cross voting across parties. The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South has just entered the Chamber, so I will repeat that from the moment he was appointed Chairman of that Select Committee all party considerations disappeared.
I believe that the Estimates, in the interests of the Service Departments and in the interests of the defence of this country, should be handled with meticulous care and the Committee should have power to send for witnesses and papers. We should be given a great deal more information on this matter. A committee of secrecy should be set up every year to which the separate Estimates would be remitted so that they could be gone through with a toothcomb behind the scenes. The House could still retain its existing procedures. This would be in the interests of the House. It would build up an informed opinion on both sides of the House and would help the Government and the Opposition.

Mr. Bellenger: As other Western Parliaments have done already.

Mr. Wigg: I labour for my own cabbage patch. I do not know what happens in other countries, but I have tried to discover a method whereby our procedure can be improved, and I am sure that a great deal of the ignorant bilge which is talked on both sides of the House during defence debates would not be heard if hon. Members were given access to information. That is what my right hon. Friend the Member for Easing-ton (Mr. Shinwell) is always saying. We need more information, not general information such as at which end to put a bullet in and which end it comes out, although it is perfectly clear from the speeches of some hon. Members that they have not learned that. The first requirement of a democrat is the ability to make decisions on limited evidence. That may mean wriggling for facts. But I prefer wriggling for facts rather than trying to dodge them.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: If such a committee were set up, there would be only a limited number of Members on it and only that limited number could have the information to which my hon. Friend is referring. The rest of us would continue to talk bilge, because the rest of the Members of the Committee would be sworn to secrecy.

The Deputy-Chairman: I hope that the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) will not pursue this matter too far. It is rather out of order, but I did not want to interrupt him.

Mr. Wigg: I did not pursue it in the first instance. I was led into it. I shall talk about Vote 2, which is concerned with the Territorial Army and the Reserve Forces which are governed by the Army Act. That enables me to reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough). Obviously, if a committee is appointed it cannot be a committee of the whole House, but there is no objection to having a secret session. Secret sessions should not be conducted as they were during the war, when the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) kept copies of his speeches and circulated them as a book after the war. If one circulates one's speeches, they cease to be secret.

Mr. Ede: We might not all get the same sale for them.

Mr. Wigg: The point is that the right is there. I would not mind if the procedure were established that hon. Members who wanted to be members of such a committee could get that information provided that it was handled responsibly. It is perfectly clear that our defence debates suffer from a lack of information. I suggest that a committee of secrecy should be set up to discover what the procedures should be, or perhaps when the next Select Committee on the Army Estimates is set up—it cannot be more than two years—its remit should include an examination of any procedures which would best inform the House on the details of the Estimates. I agree that at the moment we are dealing with sums which are so vast and expressed with such a generality of expression that we do not know what they are all about.
I now want to talk about Vote 2. We have had a two-day debate on defence and a three-day debate on the Army, Navy and Air Force Estimates, and yet what obviously is the most fundamental problem of all, the problem of expansion should unhappily we find ourselves threatened with war, has never once been mentioned. If we are to reorganise the Army, as the Government are setting out to do and in which we all hope they will succeed, the way in which the G.1098 is issued is of fundamental importance.
My mind does not go back to 1899, but it goes back to not so long after. I am old enough to remember 1914 vividly. I have always honoured the "Old Con-

temptibles," but what made the victory of Mons possible, as I have said many times in the House and I am sure I am right, was the genius of Haldane and his mobilisation plan which enabled us to put four divisions in France, together with 60,000 horses, inside nine days, so that at first light on 22nd August they were in a position to out-march, out-shoot and out-fight the cream of the German army. It was a superb mobilisation plan, and a superb Army.
What was the basis of it? The cardinal system was that every man, every reservist, had a 5s. postal order in his pocket with his number on it. He went to the depot, and when he got there a rifle, two suits of uniform, two pairs of boots and equipment were waiting for him. Once he was inoculated and he got over his inoculations he was an effective member of that force. At Mons, 60 per cent. of the troops in action were reservists. We have nothing like that today. The silence of the Minister of Defence and the Secretary of State on this matter means that, although the Government have departed from National Service and are retaining the same forms of Reserve service, they have given little or no thought to the Army Emergency Reserve.
In the early part of the year I asked some questions about ordnance depots. The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. W. Yates) has mentioned Donnington, but that is one only of a string of ordnance depots which contain the guns, ammunition and stores which would enable the peace-time set up to be mobilised and equipped if the necessity arose, one hopes, in a matter of hours. I do not believe there is a mobilisation plan at all or that the Government have even looked at the position on mobilisation.
One of the significant features of the Grigg Committee's Report and of statements made by Ministers is that while they are pretty sure they will get the "teeth" arms, they are not sure about the ordnance. Those are the difficulties about recruiting. When men join they go to a depot and find themselves in Bicester or Donnington and they are there for two years neither as technicians nor as soldiers, but a bit of both. From time to time one sees reports of the reactions of these men and there are large numbers of courts martial of absentees because of this unhappy situation.

Mr. W. Yates: I hope the hon. Member does; not refer to all ordnance depots M those terms.

Mr. Wigg: I am not talking about Donning-ton, but of some of the others. The command ammunition depot at Kineton had over fifty courts martial in six months. These are unhappy places, not because their officers or N.C.O.s are bad, but because of the conditions in which they operate. They are neither civilians nor soldiers, yet they handle stores of enormous value expressed in terms of cash. Millions of items have to be handled and, if one happens to be missing, a man's life might be forfeited.
I should like to hear from the Under-Secretary what has been done about the organisation of the great ordnance depots. I shall not mention them by name for security reasons. One or two have been mentioned, but I shall not give a complete picture, although I could do so. It is obvious that as the size of the Regular Army shrinks, the defence plans become more and more dependent on the method of swiftly mobilising and equipping reserves. I am sure it is right to hold the view that neither the 1914 nor the 1939 type of mobilisation would be practicable in the event of nuclear war, nor even if the necessity arose to reinforce those four or three and a half divisions in Germany at present.
I was talking last week to someone who really ought to know better, about the troops in Germany. I asked if anything went wrong what would we do about it, and he replied, "It will not go wrong". This Committee has no right to leave our constituents, our relatives and kith and kin, on the end of a limb, or rather like a tethered goat, hoping that there will be no Russian attack. I do not believe there will be a Russian attack, but the reasons why they are getting tough on Berlin at present are the result of a switch of Russian policy, which is passing from nuclear stalemate to nuclear parity. They know that the Americans could kill 70 million of them in as many hours over the Pole, but they could kill 12 million or 15 million Americans in the same number of hours in the same way. They know there is no object in the world for which American policy w ill face the death of 12 million or 15 million Americans.
In Berlin, we face the kind of situation which had its origin in the Spanish Civil War. It may bring chaos with the soldier on the ground being responsible for the maintenance of law and order. That is the issue. The boys who are made to bear the brunt are not the five American Pentagon divisions which are among the best equipped troops in the world, but the three and a half divisions of British troops, half trained and badly equipped for facing any attack on this country. It is an essential requirement for the Government to think out, if they have not already thought out, how they are to reinforce those three and a half divisions should the necessity arise.
What is true of Berlin, is true of any part of the world in which British troops are called upon to serve. The problem is that if we put men there we must be in a position to get them out or to support them. I do not believe the Government have thought out a plan, but it is time they did. I shall be very interested to hear what the Under-Secretary has to say about it.

5.25 p.m.

Mr. H. Fraser: On Vote 2, I should like to thank hon. Members on all sides of the Committee who have expressed their gratification at the improvement in recruiting and the size of the Territorial Army and to express thanks for the ideas put forward by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), speaking from almost unparalleled experience of voluntary organisations of all sorts in military and civil life. I am sure that his remarks will be taken to heart by all interested in these matters. I also wish to thank the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) for his remarks about trade unions and the part which could here be played. He discussed the rôle of the Territorial Army in general. If I may, I shall come to that in my general remarks at the end of this short speech.
We still keep creeping back to the issue of how Army Estimates should be debated. If it is agreeable to all present, I ask that that debate should now cease until a later occasion, otherwise we could spend the rest of the time debating what our procedures should be. We have not much time, and there is a lot to be got through, as I am sure is the view on all sides of the Committee.
The hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) wanted more civil defence for the Territorial Army, but the hon. Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Simmons) seemed to want less. I cannot work that conflict out.

Mr. Simmons: rose—

Mr. Fraser: I cannot give way as I am in a great hurry.
The hon. Member for Brierley Hill seemed to say that they should not be just civil defence wallahs but men who were fighters. I do not know whether I am putting it in his words, but that was the point. There must be a proper balance and the balance we have achieved is that the function of the mobile defence corps should be taken over. We had a long Adjournment debate on it the other day. If hon. Members want information about the subject, they can find it there. We think that one year in four as the basis of civil defence training for the Territorial Army is about the right value.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey, quite rightly, raised the issue of the rôle and equipment of the Territorial Army. This, as it is put in the Memorandum, shows it is obvious that a Territorial Army has a vital part to play in the defence of this country. What form and what size it should be and how it should be done, remains to be seen. I would point out to the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) that there is, of course, a mobilisation plan, but how far a mobilisation plan is to be effective depends enormously on the circumstances of whether it is a local, regional or global war. Of course this is in hand.
Of course, we have not got the same heights of simplicity of efficiency as were possible under Haldane, but the whole problem is infinitely more complex than that of the inevitable European war on the coast of Europe and the availability and possibility of having reservists in the amazing movement the hon. Member described—60,000 of them out in ten days. I am sure our plans are well in hand on every conceivable problem we can see. I can assure the hon. Member of the possession of records and numbers. Until June this year we have a very large number of people available and after June we shall still have quite sufficient.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey raised the question of equipment, which is a vital matter. Our immediate rôle is to see that the active Army is properly equipped. When we come on to Vote 7, we shall have to refer to a fair number of difficulties which we have had in this sphere of equipment. That is our first priority. Our second priority is to see that the Territorial and Reserve Armies are adequately and properly armed, which they are.
The hon. Member for Dudley raised the question of the ordnance depots. I could not agree more with him that these depots are the key to any mobilisation and military plan, since they represent the equipment behind our Forces. I am glad to say that, since I have been in office, I have been to visit two of the largest depots, spending two days at each. The one at Kineton, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, has greatly improved during the past five or six months. It has been amazing to me what an improvement has been made there, and also at Chilwell, where M.T. spare parts are stored. These organisations always keep in touch with the latest changes in the G.1098 issued by the War Office. These things are in line, and there are plans. There are plans dependent on the kinds of attack we may suffer, and I think that this organisation is sufficiently elastic, and certainly competent enough, to cope in so far as it is humanly possible to cope with the problems that may arise.

5.31 p.m.

Mr. W. Griffiths: I have been waiting to hear what the Minister had to say in reply to the debate, and I now want to say a few words on the rôle of the Territorial Army.
I have heard hon. Members talking about the need for giving better pay to young officers, and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) made an impassioned, or at any rate a very sincere, appeal for greater numbers to go into the Territorial Army, while my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) talked about the employment of the Territorial Army in Civil Defence. In my view, people do not enter services of this kind either for purely monetary reasons or in a vacuum. We cannot just say that we want trade unionists or people who work in the


nationalised industries to be well paid; of course we do, but first of all we have to make people of that kind aware of the motive for that particular service. That is where I think the Government have fallen down.
For example, how can we enthuse young men to go in for voluntary service in the Territorial Army when wide publicity is rightly given to the kind of statement which the Minister of Defence made in his speech of 11th February, when he said:
Therefore we could not honestly say to the people of this country that in the present mate of scientific knowledge there is any effective means of defending the country as a whole."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th February, 1959; Vol. 599, c. 1174.]
If that sort of observation is made by the Minister of Defence, the chief Defence Minister of the Government, it is hardly a spur or incentive to recruitment. Similarly, we have to explain to people what we intend them to do. The Minister of Defence has a conception of defending rocket sites—the point of launching the great deterrent. When we come to look at civil defence there will have to be a little more reality about this if we are to get people to take pleasure in service of this kind. It really will not do to have the kind of exercise, for instance, which we had in May of last year, when the Home Office on that occasion organised an exercise in which it was assumed that fifty hydrogen bombs had been dropped in the Preston, Birmingham and Leeds areas.

Mr. H. Fraser: This has nothing to do with Vote 2 for the Army. Surely it is the Home Office Vote that is concerned. I hope the hon. Gentleman will make it quite clear that this has nothing to do with the Territorial Army.

Mr. Griffiths: With the greatest respect to the Minister, Sir Gordon, I thought you were in charge of our proceedings. Certainly, if you call me to order I will resume my seat, but I do not think it is the Minister's job to usurp the functions of the Chair.

The Deputy-Chairman: Questions relating to the Home Office cannot be discussed on this Vote, but I am not quite sure of the point which the hon. Member is now making.

Mr. Griffiths: I am illustrating my argument. There has been much talk this afternoon about the rôle of the Territorial Army in the field of civil defence, and there has been an easy assumption that it will be the proper function in future of the Territorial Army. All I am seeking to show is that if the T.A. is to take part in civil defence, and I am not at the moment arguing whether it should or should not, civil defence as a whole will in future have to be conducted with a greater sense of reality than it has been in the past. If I am arguing that it has not been developed with a sense of reality, I am entitled to call in aid the answers given by the Department of Government which is responsible in this House a fortnight ago, and that is all I am doing.
I am seeking to enlist the aid of the Under-Secretary in getting the Government as a whole, when the Territorials are used in a civil defence exercise in future, to conduct it with the sort of sense of reality that would persuade an intelligent trade unionist and workers in general to enlist in voluntary efforts of this kind. I feel very strongly indeed that no person is going to take part in something which is merely a charade and has no reality about it.
I was going on to illustrate the point by saying that it is not good enough to conduct exercises in which it is assumed that fifty hydrogen bombs have fallen. I was going on to say that there is great controversy among physicists as to the effects of the dropping of hydrogen bombs of various sizes. I understand that it is generally agreed, however, that one 10-megaton bomb will destroy a densely populated area ten miles across, so that people are very concerned about these matters and discuss them in many places. Thus, the effects of the widespread devastation following upon such an attack are well known, and, therefore, to conduct an exercise which is supposed to be realistic and valuable in training for the future defence of the country when we are told that 13 of the bombs in that exercise were assumed to exceed the 10-megaton range is just ridiculous.
For goodness sake, in our approach to this matter, let us consider whether we shall get voluntary service from our people unless we treat them with common sense and offer what appears to them to be sensible and also excites their interest.


I should be out of order if I said that I do not think the conduct of the Government in the field of foreign affairs is an encouragement to the people to join in civil defence or to join the T.A. In fact, I think it is miraculous that the numbers in the Territorial Army are increasing, in view of what has happened. While I understand and support the motives of my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey in seeking to encourage recruitment to the T.A., in which many members of my own family have taken part in past years, I say for goodness sake let us do it in a realistic and sensible manner.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £18,210,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the Reserve Forces (to a number not exceeding 371.500. all ranks, including a number not exceeding 360,000 other ranks), Territorial Army (to a number not exceeding 330.900, all ranks), Cadet Forces and Malta Territorial Force, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Vote 6, Supplies, etc.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £43,540,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of supplies, etc., which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

5.39 p.m.

Mr. Mellish: I wish to raise only one small point, but it seems that, with every Vote we take, somebody says something about procedure. In view of the fact that I got into trouble earlier, may I say that I am not responsible for what happened yesteryear on procedure in this House, and the way we did it then, nor am I responsible, nor am I ever likely to be, for any investigation which may be made later. What I am concerned about today is that I am very well aware that some of my colleagues are very anxious to talk about the Navy and the Royal Air Force. The matter is as simple as that. I am wondering what sort of arrangements we can arrive at so as to accommodate everybody in this difficult position of having to discuss all this amount of money and all these Votes.
On Vote 6, I should like to know why there is a difference of £2 million in expenditure on solid fuel. Is it possible

that we over-estimated last year? Was it just a wild guess then? Subhead A shows that the Army expects a reduction of £31 million in the cost of food. I notice from the Royal Air Force Estimates that, although the numbers are going down, that Service has decided to make hardly any cut at all in expenditure on food. Certainly, it is not anything like as drastic a cut as apparently is taking place in the Army's expenditure. In view of this enormous cut, I should like to have some information about the standards of food in the Army.
Under Subhead Z there appears what seems to us a rather mean item in the Estimates. It relates to the receipts from the sale of food and animal feedingstuff, on which there is to be a saving. We understand that one of the reasons for this is that the discount on food purchases from N.A.A.F.I. will be acquired by the Treasury and will not go to the Soldiers' Amenities Fund. I am advised that this is a procedure which the Army has been compelled to adopt as a result of a recommendation by the Select Committee on Public Accounts.
I am not, therefore, putting the meanness down to the Army, but this appears to be a very petty practice. When I was in the Army, the Soldiers' Amenities Fund was made up of this discount from N.A.A.F.I. I should like to have an assurance that, in spite of this imposed meanness, that fund will not be affected.

5.42 p.m.

Mr. H. Fraser: On the question of welfare, and the N.A.A.F.I. rebate, the Public Accounts Committee found that the Royal Air Force was doing something similar to what is now proposed. The Committee thought that the practice in the Army was also unsuitable and we have been asked to come into line with the Royal Air Force. The N.A.A.F.I. rebate, therefore, is absorbed back into Army funds on the ground that this is the correct procedure, but it makes no difference at all to the troops.
Precisely the same funds are available now as were available when they came from the N.A.A.F.I. discount. Under Vote 9, for example, contributions towards Service entertainments, the general welfare fund, expenditure on libraries and on additional equipment for athletics are increased. As a result of this stroke of


genius on the part of the P.A.C., everything is made infinitely more complicated and the troops have the impression that they are being defrauded of their N.A.A.F.I. rebate whereas, in fact, the sums available are exactly the same.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) also raised the question of the decrease in expenditure on rations. This decrease is largely due to the fall in numbers in the Army. As he will remember, the whole of the ration issue was revised in 1957. I speak from memory but there are home-scale rations, foreignscale rations, a scale for recruits doing heavy training, and a special scale for the operational soldier. The lowest ration is 3,400 calories in this country. This is bumped up for recruits doing tough training in the first few weeks, and the average rate abroad is about 3,500 calories. We are doing a certain amount of reorganisation of supplies in Malta on an all-Services basis, and in the next few years we hope to have an all-Services scale of rationing which will have many advantages, especially on the supply side.
The reason for the decreased expenditure on solid fuel is, to some extent, the decreased cost of the fuel in Germany, on account of a reduced first delivery or freight change. There has been a decrease in the prices of some of the solid fuels in the United Kingdom and there has been a reduction in the cost of electricity and gas. There has also been a decrease in consumption of solid fuel which I cannot attribute to any special cause except, perhaps, to the fact that we have had unseasonably warm weather at certain tines of the year.

5.44 p.m.

Mr. Wigg: The Army's record in using the services of nutrition experts has not been very good. Two or three years ago the Army "dropped a clanger" by publishing an advertisement which caused the Service to be the laughing-stock of the academic world. I should like to know whether there has been an improvement in this respect. The Army has an advisory service which enables it to call in nutrition experts. What has happened to the experiments which were being made to produce rations, over and above emergency rations, which would enable men cut off from their supply depots to keep going for a long time?
I remember seeing a demonstration of a food pack in a room occupied by the Minister's predecessor. It seemed to me stodgy stuff. I took the opportunity of consulting Professor Yudkin, who occupies the Chair of Nutrition at London University. He was caustic in his comments about Army rations. We have now the opportunity of hearing from the Minister what is happening.
It is not good enough to dole out stacks of temporarily satisfying food. It needs to be related not only to the men's needs, but to operational requirements as well because of its effect upon weight. If the Minister is considering policy on the transport of troops by air this question of the weight of food carried is not unimportant. There is an operational need, a health need, and the need to get working not the best brains of the R.A.S.C. or the R.A.M.C., whom I do not wholly trust, but those readily available in universities where first-class work is being done on nutrition.

5.49 p.m.

Dr. Reginald Bennett: This is the first time that I have sought to address the Committee on the Army and I hope that hon. Members will bear with me. Though perhaps it is as unexpected as anything might be, the first item under Vote 6, Subhead E, is not very far removed from the salt water which, on various accounts, generally seems to surround me. There is a Royal Army Service Corps fleet whose activities I have observed for many years. I see that it continues to flourish, although I notice that a number of its vessels are now for disposal.
Nevertheless, I cannot help feeling, as I have felt all along, that the very existence of this fleet is an incongruity. What makes me the more alarmed this year is to observe that the Vote is no less than £88,000 up on last year, when I should have thought that the functions of this fleet would be found to disappear almost spontaneously with the cessation of the existence of coastal batteries and forts in outlying spots which might need special attention by small craft.
We have seen this often enough around the Isle of Wight. Now we can see quite clearly that target-towing is no longer required as batteries no longer exist. The


forts are silent and are even offered for disposal. What, then, is the reason for the existence of this expensive fleet? I see that the explanatory sentence opposite states that the vessels are used for purposes for which commercial vessels are not suitable. That may be so. But I have seen them carrying out a parallel service to, with almost exactly the same speed as, the Ryde ferry steamers. The gentlemen taking passage have no doubt been coming on the same train to Ryde and are doubtless going on the same train to London, but for some reason or other they prefer the much less comfortable form of transport to an existing service.
Let us recognise, in this Committee, that the existence of the fleet is incongrous and that its services should be disposed of, because there is, anyway, in existence an item in one of the other Services, on a different Estimate, called the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. That organisation performs almost identical services for the Navy, namely, the fetching and carrying. Surely such parts of the R.A.S.C.'s function as the transport of goods over long distances and deeper sea, are more suitable for the larger vessels of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary.
The point I wish to put to my hon. Friend is that the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, and indeed the small fleet of assorted vessels owned by the Royal Air Force, together with the R.A.S.C. Fleet, could at this stage be fused, as they must overlap each other enormously. We should have a Royal Services Auxiliary, if necessary, and then three civilian admirals might give place to one.
In my constituency, there has been a great deal of criticism of the very fact that the boats are built and refitted in various yards under a totally different system and a different inspectorate. Indeed, there may be similar launches built for the Navy and the Army alongside each other in the same slipways, and yet different inspectorates from different parts of the country have to come there to carry out identical inspections.
This is a corner of the Army's empire which has been overlooked. Much more careful scrutiny by this House is needed and this fleet's existence should be justified.

5.53 p.m.

Mr. H. Fraser: In reply to the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), we are looking constantly at the question of consulting experts. I do not know whether the services of Professor Yudkin have been used, but the services of other great dieticians have been used and I am sure that the point raised by the hon. Gentleman is kept under review.
Turning to the almost piratical attempt of my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. R. Bennett) to corner what few ships the Army has afloat, the main argument against his contention is that the Fleet Auxiliary is frequently manned by civilians, whereas in this case quite a large number of the small craft of the R.A.S.C. are landing craft, tank.
They are, therefore, operational, and must be manned by full-time soldiers. This point is being discussed, but so far there is a strong case for keeping things as they are, unless other circumstances arise in the inquiry which cause us to change our minds.
My hon. Friend also asked about expenditure. The small increase in expenditure is due to operational requirements.

Dr. Bennett: Is it not a fact that the Navy, also, has been in the habit of operating landing craft tanks? Is it not doing so now?

Mr. Fraser: The Navy personally, but not the Fleet Auxiliary.

Mr. Wigg: The Minister arouses my fears. He says that the Army is consulting dieticians. That is not the issue. The hon. Gentleman completely misunderstood my point. Dieticians are in hospitals and are concerned with formulating on paper the appropriate diets for patients. This is a question of fundamental research by nutrition experts. As far as I know, the only university in the country which has a chair is London University, Queen Elizabeth College.
I mentioned Professor Yudkin because he had served in the Army and had made his services available. There are also biochemists, and the like, who are expert and I will not be fobbed off with the yarn that the Army is consulting dieticians. This is what they did before. This is what they advertised for. They do not understand what is involved. This


is a problem which might be of vital importance for the efficiency of our troops. It might also involve a saving of money and give the troops a much more satisfactory diet. The Army should drop its out-of-date habits of using tin openers and tins which have been bought not on the research of experts, but on the whims and fancies of the R.A.S.C.

Question put and agreed to

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £43,540,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of supplies, etc., which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Vote 7. Stores

Motion made and Question proposed.
That a sum, not exceeding £53,680,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of stores, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March. 1960.

5.57 p.m.

Mr. Mellish: I want to ask three questions on this important Vote. The first concerns ammunition. We see in the Estimates that there is a substantial reductions in this respect of £3,659,000 under Subhead D. Can we know why there has been this big cut? We know that production of the ·303 is being stopped, except for the Vickers gun, but we must have the ·300 for the new F.N. rifle, and so we should like to know why the cut has been made.
On Subheads E and F, with particular reference to technical stores, it is extraordinary that here again the Vote is badly underspent. When we look at the other Service Estimates we find that on this subhead the Navy is always overspent. One would have thought that with the new technical advances we are making, and with our new Army which is just around the corner, on these subheads there might have been anticipation of a larger figure.
There is one other problem bothering us. Where is the provision under this Vote for guided missiles? I ask that question because the R.A.F. shows these under the ammunition subhead. So may we know where the Government show the provision for guided missiles in anticipation of the coming Estimates?
There is one other small point which arises on page 126 under Subhead A on clothing, where again there is a substantial reduction. I recognise that much of this is due to the running down of the Army, but may we have an assurance from the Minister about the new clothes our soldiers are to wear? We were given some assurances in his excellent winding-up speech on the Army Estimates last week, but we should like to know more about the raincoat which our soldiers are supposed to be getting. Also, if we can get some dates a discussion on this subhead will have been worthwhile.

6.0 p.m.

Mr. Mason: There is an item in Vote 7, under Subhead A, which puzzles me. It concerns clothing services, which cover fitting uniforms, the cleaning and repairing of clothing, including hospital clothing and the repair of boots. It then goes on to refer to hair-cutting of Gurkhas. How substantial is a Gurkha's haircut, and why is this item so specified in the Vote? I suppose that it may cause some consternation in the ranks of the British Army that we should have Gurkhas so specially itemised. How much does this item cost? Are we going in for Yul Brynners, Tony Curtis, or Edwardian hair styles? Can the Minister explain why it is that the shedding operation is placed under clothing services and why we give such special attention to a Gurkha's haircut?

6.1 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Mulley: I want to refer to technical stores and ammunition, since the burden of the Secretary of State's speech when introducing the Estimates the other day was that a great deal of equipment was projected for the current year. However, the sums provided for ammunition have fallen by the substantial amount of £4 million. That is a welcome reduction, but one wonders whether it is due to the general use of standardised ammunition or to some other cause. If such great economies have been effected by standardisation, it is even more serious that the Government have taken so long to achieve it.
It is surprising to find that in technical stores it is intended to spend about £3 million less on signals and wireless equipment, a substantial reduction over the previous year. My impression was


that a great deal of new signal equipment was to be issued in the current year, and it seems odd that there should be a substantial reduction in expenditure with an improvement in instruments to be used.
It may be that equipment has been hoarded over previous years and has been paid for on previous Votes, in which case the Army has been negligent in not putting that equipment into commission. If that is the case, we must have good reasons why that equipment has not been issued.
To a lesser extent, the same argument applies to mechanical transport and aircraft. There is a small increase in expenditure over last year, although we are told that practically the whole Army is to be equipped with new vehicles, Ferret cars and so on. The figures under the subheads do not tally with the Memorandum or the speech of the Secretary of State, who forecast a near revolution in the equipment and vehicles to be at the disposal of the Army in the financial year 1959–60.
Finally, I should like an explanation about appropriations-in-aid. We can look with some relief at the substantial sums shown as appropriations-in-aid, in that way reducing the net expenditure falling on the Treasury, but I wonder why such very large sums have been recovered by the sale of surplus stores.
For instance, receipts from the sale of surplus stores are estimated at £8,300,000 as against £13 million last year. One wonders what was the original cost of the stores now being sold. It is pleasant to see appropriations-in-aid offsetting expenditure, but we should know the original cost of the items of which the Army is now disposing. What machinery is there in the War Office to see that the ordering of stores and equipment bears some resemblance to what is needed?
Substantial sales are disclosed in the list of appropriations-in-aid, and I would appreciate some idea of whether those sums represent one-quarter, one-third, one-half, or whatever it is of the original cost to the War Office of the items in the first instance. The constant appearance of these sums is not a matter for congratulation, but a subject on which we are entitled to some explanation.

6.5 p.m.

Mr. Philip Goodhart: Like the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley), I too have been worried at the state of wireless equipment in the Army. I discussed this matter at some length during our debate last week. This is a subject which has been a matter of controversy for a long time. I believe that an improvement would be effected if responsibility for the development and procurement of Army wireless sets could be taken from the Ministry of Supply and handed to the War Office. During the debate on the Army Estimates, I asked the Under-Secretary whether any change in the procedure for development or procurement was contemplated. I wonder whether I shall have a reply now.

6.6 p.m.

Mr. Wigg: Will the hon. Gentleman be good enough to explain why all the Votes are presented in this form? If he looks at page 16, he will see that there is a note to Vote 1 to say that it includes the Supplementary Estimate, whereas in Vote 7 a comparison of the revised figures and the Supplementary Estimate makes nonsense of the actual figures. Several of my hon. Friends have said that the figures are quite different.
It is quite wrong that one Vote, particularly Vote 1, should be prepared in one way, taking into account the figures of revised estimates, while Vote 7 is prepared in another way It is especially unfortunate because it is on Vote 7 that the dirty work has been done during the last year. That is where the overall instructions of the Minister of Defence have been put into effect. The right hon. Gentleman has said that recruiting should be pushed forward and that there should be increased rates of pay but that the Departments must keep within their existing ceilings of expenditure. The result has been that the men have been obtained at the expense of equipment. That is a matter which requires explanation.
There is a saving on Vote 7 under almost every heading. A study of the figures will show that the comparison of 1958–59 and 1959–60 is "phoney". The figures for technical stores are down by £3,600,000. They should be not £21,323,000 but £17,650,000. The hon. Gentleman has already been asked for an explanation about ammunition. In


that respect the criticism is even stronger, because the figure is not £13.341,000, but £6,700,000, a true underspending of £6½ million, almost 50 per cent.

Mr. H. Fraser: We must get this clear. At the moment we are discussing the Army Estimates for 1959–60. What the hon. Member says is important to certain arguments, but we are not discussing the Supplementary Estimate for 1958–59, which will be discussed separately after the other Votes have been discussed. That is the normal procedure which the hon. Member must bear in mind. We are now discussing Vote 7 of the Estimates for 1959–60.

Mr. Wigg: I am clearly aware that we are discussing Votes on the Estimates for 1959–60. Is the hon. Member aware that in Vote 1 the figures shown for 1958–59 have been altered to take into account Supplementary Estimates? I am not suggesting that this is a trick. At any rate, if it is it is a very silly one, because the footnote (a) says, "Including Supplementary Estimate". The Parliamentary Secretary and my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) have presumably fallen for this and have assumed that exactly the same procedure has been adopted in connection with Vote 7, and so my hon. Friend makes a legitimate comparison with the figure as it originally appeared.

Mr. Mellish: I am not quite so stupid as that. I intended to ask a number of questions on the Supplementary Estimates. I have some notes here to ask questions about the decreases shown in the previous year's Estimates, particularly on Vote 7, Subheads E and F. I was not going to ignore them, but I thought that I ought to wait until we reached Vote 7.

Mr. Wigg: I want to discuss the form in which the Vote is presented. I was saying that it is presented differently from the way in which Vote 1 is presented, and I want to know why. There must be some explanation. These are not mistakes. The Department must have some reason for revising Vote 1 and not Vote 7. The figure concerned represents 50 per cent. of the expenditure. We ought to know why there has been such an under-spending in 1958–59 before passing the 1959–60 figure.
Can it be that the speech of the Secretary of State for War is another piece of window dressing? It would help if we were to have a categorical assurance that the Estimates for 1959–60 will be spent, because if they are not the Government will not have begun to answer the arguments put by hon. Members on this side of the Committee that the Army is badly equipped. It is very easy to inflate the figures in the Estimates and then play the same trick next year as has been played this year, by underspending. Everybody claps, except the Army, who will have obsolescent equipment and nothing but promises of better things to come.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. H. Fraser: I will deal, first, with the complex point concerning the reconciliation of the Supplementary Estimates with the main Estimates. Vote 1 is a comparatively simple one, which is easily calculated, but Vote 7 is the most complicated of all the Army Votes, because it contains something called the prior year adjustment.
As the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) knows, the prior year adjustment is a form of accountancy which is accepted by Parliament and by the Public Accounts Committee. The prior year adjustment charges arise only in the last three or four months, and they arise because the Army has to have available sufficient funds to pay the Ministry of Supply and other providers of stores in the last three months of the financial year.
Guesses have to be made, especially about lines of production, and intelligent guesses are made by the War Office and the Ministry of Supply. There nearly always has to be an adjustment, and in this case it is about £5 million. It would be better to discuss this question of reconciliation, as was suggested by the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish), when we reach the Supplementary Estimates at the end of our discussion.
I would, therefore, prefer to turn to the various points raised on the 1959–60 Estimates. The question of clothing and allowances was raised by the hon. Member for Bermondsey and others. Raincoats are going into troop trials in April, and I hope that they will be able to go into full production and supplies to the troops begin next year.
The hon. Member also raised the question of ammunition. As he rightly pointed out, there is a considerable shortfall there. The hon. Member for Dudley knows that the real shortfall is more than the figure given in the Estimates, because of the various adjustments which have had to be made. The deliveries of ammunition for last year will work out at £6·89 million. The difference therefore, is between the £6·89 million delivered last year and the £9 million that we believe will actually be delivered this year. In real terms it is an increase. This shows the complications of the matter. What hon. Members should be interested in is the figure for the actual deliveries.

Mr. Mulley: The hon. Member ought to explain why he asks for £13 million and spends only half of it.

Mr. Fraser: There were three main reasons for the shortfall. First, last year was the year when we had a reorganisation of the ordnance factories of the Ministry of Supply. Secondly, there was the problem of designing certain types of new fuses and shells. We are now moving into an era when the lethality of ammunition must be constantly improved. Thirdly, we decided at this time last year that it would be proper for the inspectorate to spend more time on refurbishing and maintaining the already existing stocks of ammunition. These factors account for the considerable fall in the Estimate that we set out to achieve.
We believe that this year we will achieve the production of £9,682,000 estimated. I have been in touch with my hon. Friends in the Ministry of Supply. The problems of the ordnance factories have now been overcome and the period of consolidation is over. In addition, the problems related to the new fuses and other types of new equipment have been overcome and I very much hope that the figure of just over £9½ million will be a real one. Some of the ammunition that we are now producing is not only the best in Europe, but the best in the world.
Moving on to the question of mechanical transport and aircraft. I was asked where the cost of guided missiles falls. That comes under Technical Stores, under Subhead F. Hon. Members who follow these matters closely will see that

we are spending considerably more than last year on vehicles, aircraft, and so forth.

Mr. Mellish: The hon. Gentleman's statement about technical stores is most unsatisfactory. If we are moving into a new era when we shall have an Army which is better equipped technically one would have thought that the tendency would be to overspend. How is it that we have underspent compared with the previous year?

Mr. Fraser: The underspending in previous years on technical stores which we are referring to now—I am sorry, I meant mechanical transport, under Subhead E. I apologise to the Committee for having confused the items under Subheads E and F.
There is underspending on technical stores which will mean, on a reconciliation of the two figures, an amount of nearly £3 million spent on wireless equipment. We have already discussed this to some extent in the previous debate. The situation is not satisfactory for the year, but the general situation over a period of years regarding the equipping of the Army with new radio sets is satisfactory. This is a programme which will cost about £20 million. Already, we are over the peak of the production of sets. One brigade group in Germany has got the sets and, I think I am right in saying, by this time next year six of the nine types of set necessary for the equipment of the whole of B.A.O.R. will be issued.
The shortfall arose, as I explained the other day, because, again, there was what might be called over-enthusiasm for certain types of sets and a breakdown in the supply of parts for those sets. If hon. Gentlemen reconcile the figures for the two Estimates, they will find that we shall be firmly spending about £4 million this year, which is about the same real sum as was spent last year. As I explained previously, this situation is improving fairly rapidly. Sets are being issued fairly quickly and by this time next year nearly all of the British Army in Germany will be equipped with these new types of sets.
I was asked about working out with the Ministry of Supply whether the present method of supply was the best. We are always keen on improving these matters and I am glad to say that even


at this early stage of the year our firm orders on Vote 7 are 20 per cent. to 30 per cent. in excess of the figure for this time last year and that is a considerable improvement.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: The hon. Gentleman said the figure for guided missiles was included in Subhead F. Can he say what is the figure?

Mr. Fraser: No, I am sorry.

Mr. Fernyhough: Obviously, in submitting these Estimates the War Office has had to take into consideration the stores and equipment which it alreidy possesses. We have just signed an agreement with Colonel Nasser under which we have said "Goodbye" to a large amount of stores and equipment in Egypt. Can the Minister tell me how that will affect this Estimate? Does it mean that before the end of the year we shall be confronted with a Supplementary Estimate to provide ourselves with stores and equipment to replace that which we thought would be available to us in Egypt, and which, because of the agreement with Colonel Nasser, is no longer available?

Mr. Fraser: No, these stores were written off some time ago.
The hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) raised an interesting point about haircuts for Gurkhas. I will write to him about the details. If Gurkhas wish to have their haircuts paid for by the British Army, the War Office will be delighted to find the necessary money.

Mr. Mason: The hon. Gentleman will agree that he has not explained why this item should be mentioned under the paragraph in the Explanatory Notes relating to clothing services, and why, having been mentioned, there is no reference to how much is involved. Our lads, who are still suffering from the effect of "basin haircuts"—the usual Army haircuts—are not mentioned at all.

Mr. Mulley: I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) has raised an important point regarding haircuts for Gurkhas and that it justifies further investigation. But I feel that the Under-Secretary should not be allowed to think that he can get away with the answer which he has given about ammunition. Last year, the Committee was asked to vote a sum of £13,300,000 and only half of that was spent. Before

we approve this Vote we should like an assurance that the money which we are voting will be spent. It means that last year either the Ministry was asking for more money than was needed, and was proposing to waste several millions of pounds of public money, or else the Army was allowed to be under-equipped.
That there was not sufficient ammunition is a most serious accusation to make. But either more money was asked for than was needed—and an explanation should be given about that—or, in the event of hostilities, the troops would have been short of ammunition. In the eyes of an infantryman that is a cardinal sin. Men may be allowed to go without clothing or food, but to an infantryman a shortage of ammunition is a cardinal sin. We must have an explanation.

Mr. Fraser: If the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I said, he would have heard me explain what happened last year to cause this shortfall. It relates to new ammunition, new fuses and new types of tank ammunition. The breakdown was not in the old, standard ammunition, but in new ammunition which we are developing. Most of the problems relate to the Royal Ordnance Factories and are in connection with fuses and new antitank ammunition. These problems have been overcome and I can say with some certainty that when we state that we shall produce £9 million worth of ammunition, we shall do so this year, because the difficulties experienced last year have been overcome.

Mr. Mellish: What it amounts to is that the Minister of Supply should be present answering these questions and not the Under-Secretary. It is not a case of the War Office under-ordering, but what the War Office received from the Ministry of Supply, and we know that that can be a very inefficient Department.

Mr. Wigg: I do not wish to go into the question of the working of the Ministry of Supply. We shall be satisfied if the Under-Secretary will give an undertaking on behalf of his right hon. Friend that it is the firm intention of the War Office to spend all the money for which it is asking under this Vote; and that this year we shall not have the window dressing nonsense which finds expression in revised Supplementary Estimates.
May I ask that Supplementary Estimates, whether revised or actual, should be shown in the future? Is it possible to indicate that a Supplementary Estimate is included and would it be asking too much to ensure that in future all Votes will have a heading which indicates whether or not the Supplementary Estimate is included?

Mr. Fraser: So far as we can, we shall always see in the future that it is stated whether a Supplementary Estimate is included or not. Clearly, it should be put down as in Vote I, Supplementary Estimate, perhaps in larger type so that attention will be drawn to it. I do not know whether we can always guarantee to do it as in Vote I this year. I will, however, see that it is put more clearly next year to show whether there is any disparity in comparing like with like. There is no need to answer the first question put to me, because I and my right hon. Friends are determined to see that what we are asking to be spent shall be spent.

Mr. Fernyhough: If I may revert to the answer which the hon. Gentleman gave me, it is true that the stores to which I referred may be written off, but they were stores which were available to the British forces had they been necessary. They are no longer available. The War Office must have thought, when maintaining that base, that some day these supplies might be necessary, and to that extent this is a short fall. I wondered whether it would be necessary to make up for that shortfall, because of the agreement that we have signed with Colonel Nasser. before the year was out.

Mr. Fraser: No, it will not.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £53,680,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of stores, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Vote 8. Works, Buildings and Lands

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £30,230,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of works, buildings and lands, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

6.33 p.m.

Dr. Bennett: I have one small but rather sad observation to make on this Vote. It is the disagreeable experience which my constituents have had in respect of the closing by the War Office of a road called Wallington Hill, in the neighbourhood of Fareham. So far as I and my constituents are aware, this road was barricaded suddenly and without notice because it was on War Office land, and we in this part of Hampshire are in what might be called occupied Hampshire.
It was a very rude thing to do, in my opinion. I believe that some public-spirited persons broke down this barrier and now there is an erection of pipes, tubes and girders which would stop anything but one of my hon. Friend's tanks. I should like to know what was the cost of the erection of this reinforced barrier, in the first instance, and the subsequent estimate for its removal. I should like to ask my hon. Friend whether in future when roads that have been used by leave by the public across War Office land are to be closed notice will be given and some attempt made to accommodate the local people concerned. This has been a great error in a neighbourhood on which my hon. Friend relies a good deal for recruiting.

Mr. H. Fraser: I will look into it.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £30,230,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of works, buildings and lands, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Vote 9. Miscellaneous Effective Services

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £5,840,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of miscellaneous effective services, including a grant in aid to the Council of Voluntary Welfare Work, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

6.35 p.m.

Mr. Mellish: In connection with page 154 of this Vote—Payments in respect of the Suez Canal Base Contracts—my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) referred to the question of stores and said that as a result of the agreement with Colonel Nasser this country has lost about £100 million. We


have just wiped that off. It is only part of the settlement on Suez. I would ask the Under-Secretary whether this £3,000 Estimate for 1959–60 is the last of it. Is there more to come, or is this going on continuously?
Vote 9, Subhead 0 (2) refers to "Regimental Allowances and Entertainment Expenses". When we look at the Explanatory Notes, we find that this particular cost also concerns cleaning equipment. This is a charge which is made for regimental allowances and entertainment expenses, and I should like to know whether the Under-Secretary can give an assurance that the vast bulk of this money will be for regimental allowances and not for entertainment and cleaning equipment. This all comes under this subhead and it might give him a chance to break it down and tell us more about it.

6.37 p.m.

Mr. Wigg: I want to raise two very serious and important matters. On the 14th September, 1857, Captain Robert Shebbeare won the Victoria Cross. This gallant officer volunteered for service in China and was engaged in the attack on Taku Forts. Unfortunately, he was stricken with illness and, after being embarked on the "Emu" for the United Kingdom, he died at sea off Shanghai on 16th September, 1860.
His Victoria Cross, one of the earliest of these medals to be awarded, was, needless to say, cherished by his family. To say that it was an heirloom is to put it mildly. This very gallant officer, who had given his life for his country, was awarded this medal but did not live to be honoured by having it presented to him by the Queen, and his descendants received it.
In 1949, this medal was loaned to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Museum, together with the Mutiny medal. There it remained until the time approached for celebrating the 100th year of the award of this decoration. The family who loaned it—and I have seen a copy of a letter acknowledging the decoration—asked for it back, and it could not be found. Various excuses were offered. I corresponded with the Secretary of State and the family corre-

sponded with the Commandant and were told that it was lost.
Nothing in the Army is lost. Anything that is lost has been won, or, to put it in barrack-room language, someone pinched it. That is what happened. I do not know who it was, but someone stole the medal. It was a scandalous state of affairs. I will not go into the question of the medal itself or what the Secretary of State for War should do. What I am concerned with is the maladministration of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. The Commandant wrote to the family and said that is was last seen in 1952 or 1953.
There have been several commandants and a number of curators. In that establishment is gathered all that is best and greatest in the British Army. It is where officers are trained. Do they never have a take-over or any checking of equipment? When the present Commandant took over, did he not have a check to see what private and public stores he was taking over? This is no idle matter. It concerns a matter which is very dear to the Shebbeare family, but it would be just as important if it were the medal of the humblest of those who served in Her Majesty's Forces.
What matters here is that the former C.I.G.S., Field Marshal Templer, is devoting the rest of his life to establishing an Army museum. I wish him well. It is a great enterprise which may do a great deal to make the public realise what they have owed to the Army in the past. It is not the way to behave to borrow a medal of this kind, of great sentimental and intrinsic value, and then to say that it has been lost. What were the circumstances in which it was lost? No doubt a court of inquiry was held, the police were informed and inquiries made.
This is not the only thing that has been lost at Sandhurst. I have a newspaper cutting here, of which I unfortunately have not the date. It says:
'LOCK UP PISTOLS'—SANDHURST ORDER.
All pistols, antique, to be locked away. That is the order for the day at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, after the latest 'arms' raid.
A cleaner noticed that ten of the pistols, which date from the time of Waterloo, 144 years ago, had gone from the wall of Old College Ante Room. Last month 16 disappeared. Several hundred of them are on loan to the Academy from the Tower of London.


I have another cutting here from the Evening News of 15th January, 1959. It says:
Many of the 1,000 antique pistols on the walls of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst are to be taken down for storage and safe keeping following the theft of pistols worth over £300 in the past few months, said Colonel D. Taylor, Commanding Officer, today.
I do not want to make heavy weather of this, but in view of what has happened—a considerable number of people now know what has happened at Sandhurst—would the Minister be good enough to give an assurance, not only to me but to the Committee, that there has been a most careful examination into the administration at Sandhurst, not only with a view to seeing, needless to say, that the thefts will stop, which goes without saying, but that the internal economy of Sandhurst is efficient and shall be so organised that whoever happens to be Commandant at a particular moment shall know for a certainty that the public stores he is supposed to be responsible for are actually there?
In my day, if an officer commanding an unarmed company of a Pioneer Corps had behaved in this way he would have been relieved of his command. I see the Minister of Defence on the Government Front Bench. I have no doubt that the officer responsible in this case will be promoted, because he is qualified to be one of the right hon. Gentleman's military advisers. This is one of the deplorable things that happen in the Armed Forces. We find them over and over again. When one gets at the heart of things one finds. not the glorious pictures painted by White Papers and Defence Estimates, but the grossest of maladministration. This seems to be a perfect example of it.
I turn to another matter. There is justice in the world, and it is only just that the Under-Secretary of State for War should be here to answer the questions I am now going to put before him. I remember that on the eve of the Suez operation he said, "Smash Nasser now". Some 700 of our fellow-countrymen have paid the price for that operation. They were gentlemen, many of them of high technical ability, who undertook to serve on a two-year contract in the Suez base. The base contained public stores which have been estimated at from £60 million

to £100 million and were worth at any rate a very considerable sum.
These 700 men, having signed contracts for two years, began their service in the Suez base. If they had been cattle they could not have been treated with less concern by the crowd of criminals on the Government Front Bench who undertook the Suez operation—an operation unplanned, ill-prepared, inefficient and fore doomed to failure from the very word "go". The Government never even undertook the elementary precaution of caring tuppence what happened to the lives and well-being of those 700 men. So far as the Government were concerned those men could have been dropped into the Canal. Nobody in the Government worried about them.
I am told upon reliable information that these men on the spot had a pretty shrewd idea of what was cooking. They went to the consular authorities and, needless to say, they got no change. I can verify that, because shortly before the fun and games started out there I went to the British consul. The place was full of rumours, but I could get no information. Some of these 700 men got lorries and stocked them up with food. It would have been possible for them to escape. but they were loyal. They had signed contracts. They behaved in accordance with the finest traditions of our race, although not the finest traditions of the Tory Front Bench.
They stuck to their jobs and they were imprisoned by the Egyptians. They were spat at and they were kept short of food. They were lousy and unwashed. Finally they were released. We would think that the criminals who had put them in this position would at least have done something, if only out of their own pockets, to make up to those men for the indignities which they had suffered. Instead the Government appointed assessors to find out what they had lost. They offered them six months' salary on a take-or-leave-it basis.
Note a difference. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will remember this. The contracting firms who had gone into the Suez base were given six years' compensation. I think it was right that they should have it. Before they ever went to Suez they asked for a contract on a cost-plus basis for six years. That is what they got. The employees


who had gone to prison on behalf of hon. and right hon. Gentleman on the Government benches got six months' compensation.
The crowning act of indignity—I believe hon. Members do not know this. and I could hardly believe it myself—was that these chaps had some of their bank balances sequestrated. The Government allowed them to have their bank balances made up, but on one condition. which was that the Income Tax they owed to the Egyptian authorities should be deducted from those balances. So we have the hon. Gentleman who said "Smash Nasser now" in his present job where he acts as a tax collector for Nasser. This is what happened, and this is what is called "A policy through strength".
These men have been treated scandalously, shockingly, inefficiently. Whenever again are we to civilianise bases overseas when this is how we treat men? They are burning with a deep sense of grievance. They left their motor cars behind. They were told by Brigadier Helmi of the Egyptian Army at El Gapp on 21st December, 1956, when they were going into Port Said, We are going to sell your motor cars and take your assets towards the cost of the damage which the British have done at Port Said." There was no justice in that. Government supporters, before they blow their brains out, should turn their pockets out and sell all they have and give to the poor of Port Said. The Egyptians took the motor cars and sold them at knock-put prices in Suez or in Port Said.
Where the cars had been held on hire-purchase terms the Government even deducted, on behalf of Egyptian garages, from the balances they gave these men the money which was outstanding on the hire-purchase agreements. Could indignity go further? That is one of the products of the policy through strength. We have Blue Streaks and V-bombers and nuclear bombs, but our fellow-citizens are treated as criminals, and the Government accept the fact without a bleat.
The facts are well known. I have written to the Foreign Secretary. I have written to the Secretary of State for War. He insists that there is a difference between the firm and the men. That is obviously Tory philosophy. There is a

difference between the men who make the money and those who make it for them. I hope that hon. Members on this side will join with me in raising their voices in demanding justice for these men. They should have been treated in the same way as the firms. I wonder what the Daily Mail and Mr. Randolph Churchill and the Daily Express think about the idea that the British Government act as Nasser's tax collector.
I hope that even at this eleventh hour, on behalf of the Government—not for the honour of th Conservative Party, but for the honour of Britain—the Under-Secretary will agree to treat these men with generosity for the humiliating position in which they were put, not as a result of their own actions, but because of the criminal act of right hon. Members on the Front Bench opposite.

6.51 p.m.

Mr. H. Fraser: I will deal, first, with the question raised by the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) about regimental allowances and entertainment expenses. As the hon. Member will recall, it was part of the recommendation made by Sir James Grigg's Committee that commanding officers should have larger funds available to them. It is impossible, at this stage, without referring to individual units, to say how much of this money is to be spent on entertainment and how much on cleaning. I recall to the hon. Member, however, that we are this year introducing a webbing equipment which cannot be cleaned. I think that the common sense of commanding officers will see that a fair proportion of this money is spent on activities which are essential to the physical, moral and other wellbeing of the troops.
The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) raised three main points. The first was the question of Captain Shebbeare's lost V.C. I would very much like to talk to the hon. Member about this afterwards. I fully agree that it is a bad matter. It is certainly being investigated.
My right hon. Friend and myself are most concerned by the series of losses from Sandhurst. Full inquiry is being made. I can only assure the hon. Member that we are looking into this deeply to try to find out what is wrong and how these losses have arisen.
The third and last point raised by the hon. Member was the important one of the Suez Contractors Employees' Association. That, I think, was the origin of the hon. Member's information. While having sympathy with the case as expressed by the hon. Member, I must inform him that the facts as I have them are somewhat different concerning the number of years' compensation given to the firms and the compensations to the individual men. My information is that most of the men accepted the compensation terms offered to them and that those compensation terms were—

Mr. Wigg: Surely the hon. Gentleman is far too generous and decent to use that argument. These men had no alternative. They were told, "Either take this or you will get nothing." That is not acceptance.

Mr. Fraser: I will certainly look into the matter again, but some of my information is contrary to that of the hon. Member.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £5,840,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of miscellaneous effective services, including a grant in aid to the Council of Voluntary Welfare Work, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Vote 10. Non-effective Services

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £36,980,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of non-effective services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

6.54 p.m.

Mr. Mellish: On the last Vote, my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) spoke of a lost Victoria Cross. I want to talk about those who still have the V.C. The question has been raised before and we now have the chance to raise it again. Under the subhead, it is estimated that a sum of £2,650 is all that will be required for pensions for the existing holders of the Victoria Cross. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Simmons) is not present, because he has a particular interest in this matter. I know that some hon. Members opposite also are keen about it.
We read in the Explanatory Notes that the Victoria Cross was instituted in 1856 and that
Recipients other than commissioned officers are entitled to an annuity (normally £10, which may be increased in certain circumstances).
When was the £10 first instituted? I should be horrified to think that it was as far back as 1856. Because of the fall in the value of money alone, the figure should now be nearer £100. I gather that the "certain circumstances" are when it is proved that the holder is in a state of poverty. We have had only one or two cases of distress. The matter is worth considering again and I ask the Under-Secretary whether he cannot assure us that under the subhead it is practicable to be a little more generous.

Mr. H. Fraser: My impression is that the payment was instituted later than the introduction of the Victoria Cross. Two years ago, it was declared that more generous payments could be made to holders of the decoration, but, as the hon. Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Simmons) and others will know, no change was made in the standard payment awarded.

6.58 p.m.

Mr. Wigg: I wish to raise the question of the Long Service and Good Conduct Medals, which I hold, and the Meritorious Service Medal, which I do not hold. Many servants of the House of Commons have the M.S.M. It is given on a rota system, but one has to be about 90 before he gets the gratuity. Is it not time that the Minister considered the procedures which are followed in this case and whether it is not possible to step up the gratuity, which is only £10? This amount was fixed many years ago, when the value of money was much greater. If £10 was right then, it should be nearer £50 today.
A man is registered for the M.S.M. and eventually his turn comes, about twenty years after he has left the Service. Is it not possible, when his turn comes and he gets the medal, for him to get his gratuity? At present, he waits twenty years for the medal and then waits his turn again for the gratuity. If he gets it before he is 90, he is lucky. I do not plead for myself. I have no hope of getting either the medal or the gratuity. I certainly would not want it without the gratuity.
For those who are eligible, however, will the hon. Gentleman be good enough to consider the method of award of the M.S.M. and the amount of the gratuity, as well as the Long Service Medal, the qualification for which is eighteen years of undetected crime? If the gratuity for this was £5 before the war, should it not now be £25 or even £50?

Mr. H. Fraser: I will look at both points, although without making any commitment to take action. Concerning the Meritorious Service Medal, my own feeling is that there should be some adjustment.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £36,980,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of non-effective services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Vote 11. Additional Married Quarters

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of certain additional married quarters, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Fernyhough: I have raised previously the problem of men who have given long service to the Army and who, at the expiration of that service, find themselves without a home. I think that the only thing worse than being without a home is being without a home and without a job, and these men generally find themselves in both categories. What is the War Office doing to help men who, on completion of their service, are turned out of Army accommodation and have nowhere to go?
I have repeatedly asked that the War Office should make funds available to local authorities so that the local authorities can build houses which would be specially allocated to men in this category, but the War Office argues that it has not the necessary power. I want the Minister to understand that if he came to the House and asked for the powers they would be readily granted. It is unfair to expect local authorities to give these men special priority, because the authorities are in great difficulty and have very long waiting lists.

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. James H. Hoy): Order. May I remind the hon. Member that this Vote does not cover local authorities, but deals purely with Army housing? I allowed him to say a few words about it, but he must not go deeply into the question because it is not covered by the Vote.

Mr. Fernyhough: The local authority cannot give these men special priority, because it has many other claimants. Moreover, the Army has the moral responsibility for them, and I am pointing out that the War Office ought to ask the House for the necessary powers in order to provide accommodation for men who have given long service and who, at the end of it, are thrown out on the streets with nowhere to go.

7.3 p.m.

Mr. H. Fraser: I do not know whether this is in order—I doubt it—but perhaps I may reply briefly. This matter must remain the interest and the prescriptive right of local authorities. The Army cannot take on this type of organisation. The Army must provide pensions and financial help to those who have served it, but it is not for the Army to provide housing accommodation for those who have left its service. Its chief job at present is to provide housing for those serving, whether married or single.

7.4 p.m.

Mr. Mellish: I have much sympathy with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough). The Army has gone a long way to gel as many long-serving soldiers as possible by means of the very fine pensions which have been introduced. There is every encouragement for a man to serve for twenty-two years in the Army. The young man at 20 who joins the Army and serves for twenty-two years is only 42 at the end of his service and, apart from employment, one of his biggest problems then is the absence of a home.
The Army is being very good about this in giving some financial help. A terminal grant of £700 is given. Nevertheless, we must show some imagination here. I had a letter from the War Office explaining why it could not set up the apparatus of a hire-purchase scheme for housing for men. Probably this would be difficult. Nevertheless, I think that the time has come when we ought seriously to consider how we can help these men


in establishing themselves in civilian life after they have left the forces. One of the biggest deterrents to recruiting today —and we are all keenly interested in recruiting—is what happens at the end of a man's Army career.
I do not ask the Under-Secretary of State to reply tonight, because it would be unfair to do so, but I leave the point with him. If we give a guarantee of some help, for instance, by low loan charges, at the end of a man's service, it will eventually lead to our having more recruits at the beginning.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £100. be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of certain additional married quarters, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

ARMY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES 1958–59

Resolved,
That a supplementary sum, not exceeding,, 9900,010, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1959, for expenditure beyond the sum already provided in the grants for Army Services for the year.

SCHEDULE



Sums not exceeding




Supply Grants
Appropriations in Aid


Vote

£
£


1. Pay, &amp;c., of the Army

7,190,010
1,630,000


2. Reserve Forces, Territorial Army and Cadet Forces

1,500,000
—


3. War Office

150,000
—


4. Civilians (Revised Sum)
Cr.
790,000
370,000


5. Movements

625,000
865,000


6. Supplies, &amp;c.
Cr.
1,590,000
—


7. Stores
Cr.
14,900,000
1,250,000


8. Works, Buildings and Lands
Cr.
1,150,000
*—210,000


9. Miscellaneous Effective Services

8,860,000
—


10. Non-Effective Services

1,005,000



11. Additional Married Quarters

—
*—135,000


Total, Army (Supplementary), 1958–59

£900,010
£3,770,000


* Deficit.

NAVY ESTIMATES

Vote 1. Pay, etc., of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £64,899,000, he granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the pay, etc of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

7.7 p.m.

Mr. E. G. Willis: I should like to ask one or two questions on this Vote, but before doing so I want to comment on the fact that as a percentage of naval expenditure this Vote has tended to diminish. It represents about 15 per cent. of the total Navy Estimate. I make that comment because of the remarks which are often made about increasing costs being due to increasing wages. That is not borne out in the Navy Estimates.
Am I in order in asking what progress is being made in the Navy in respect of its consideration of the Report on Lower Deck Structure? This has been before the Admiralty for some time and it might make some difference, although not a considerable difference, to this Vote if the Admiralty made certain recommendations or certain changes during the current year. To what extent is the Navy bound in its consideration of the structure of the lower deck by the policy which has been pursued since the war of trying to equate branches of the Navy with branches of the other Services—a policy about which I think the Treasury feels much more keenly than does the Navy?
I want also to draw attention to Subhead L, dealing with education allowances. This is increasing enormously this year and is almost four times as large as it was last year. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary can tell us something about it. What interests me particularly about the allowances is that in the Estimates for this year £275,000 is on account of children of officers while only £45,000 is on account of children of seamen and marines. When we remember that there are seven or eight times as many men as there are officers, this seems to be disproportionate, and it certainly draws attention to the fact that we have still a long way to go before we have equality of opportunity in education.
Is the Minister satisfied that the men of the Navy know of these provisions? Possibly they do, but I am not certain. Is the hon. Member satisfied that these provisions are well known? It would help us if we could be given some idea of the number of seamen and marines who are expected to benefit this year. The hon. Member may not be able to give that figure, but it would help us in an appreciation of the situation if we had some idea of the numbers involved.

7.9 p.m.

The Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing): Dealing first with the question about education allowances, I think that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) and the whole Committee welcomed the recommendations of the Grigg Committee in this matter and welcomed still more the Government's acceptance of those recommendations. I remember making an impassioned speech on this issue from the back benches about three or four years ago, asking that the allowances should be made more realistic and that they should start not at 11, but at nine, so that a child had a chance of continuity of education before the 11-plus examination.
This is a very considerable step forward. The Estimate for which we are asking the Committee is very much what might describe as a "guestimate", because it is impossible to say how many officers and ratings will wan: to take up the new facilityes. If the hon. Member looks at the Supplementary Estimate he will find that in the current year we underestimated considerably. Instead of £.84.000, which the allowances were expected to cost, they cost, in fact, £134,000. Our guess is that in the coming year it will cost £320,000.
The hon. Gentleman will observe that we have increased the officers' allowance two and a half times—that is only a guess —and we have increased the ratings' allowance four and a half times, which suggests that we believe that more ratings will take the chance of educating their children under this scheme. The scheme starts on 8th April. when the allow-z rice goes up from £75 to £150. I have not the figures by me of the number of people who are expected to apply, and perhaps we can leave that point. I will let the hon. Gentleman know.
It is not true to say that there is not scope and opportunity. It is just a question of the way in which ratings on the lower deck and officers wish to educate their children. I hope that we shall find seamen and marines applying in greater numbers.
I was also asked what progress was being made. The Committee on the Structure of the Lower Deck has recently made an interim Report, which is at present under consideration. As the hon. Gentleman will realise, it is a tremendous problem.

7.12 p.m.

Miss Joan Vickers (Plymouth, Devon-port): I should like to draw the attention of my hon. Friend to Vote 1, page 20, Subhead Z. I wish to speak about appropriations-in-aid. I understand that naval recruiting has been very good. It is a great pity that the amount of money allowed should have been cut down from £120,000 to £80,000. Surely it is better for those who are not happy in the Service to be able to leave it by purchasing their way out.

The Temporary Chairman: The hon. Lady is not in order in discussing appropriations-in-aid under the Estimate.

7.13 p.m.

Dr. Reginald Bennett: I do not wish to he the cause of the truncation of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers). If she has any other points to raise—

Miss Vickers: No.

Dr. Bennett: —I feel sure that when she has recovered from her consternation she will he able to make them.
If it is the pleasure of the Chair, I wish to raise one or two points which have come to my knowledge very recently, even yesterday, about the officers and men of the Reserve Fleet. I discovered one or two points while visiting my old friend H.M.S. "Guardsvan", that mighty ship which still dominates the upper reaches of Portsmouth Harbour. The first point is the astounding technical knowledge required of the ratings employed in the maintenance of these ships that are on what might be called immediate readiness reserve. I find that the ships are kept in such a condition that the men on board


genuinely regret the fact that they may from time to time have to go into dockyard hands for refits in order to modernise them partially and in different departments. The men regret having their beautifully clean ships spoilt and the standard of maintenance reduced by a refit. That is a fine testimony to the way in which these chaps are maintaining. these first line reserve ships.
The point that I want to make on this is about the senior ratings, chief petty officers and petty officers, who are doing this highly technical work, as my hon. Friend will well know, in the radio, radar and other such divisions of the ship where very experienced men must be employed. I believe that there is a reluctance at the moment to employ chief petty officers and petty officers in their fifth five-year engagement, or even their sixth five-year engagement, because it is thought that, if they were embodied in the crew in the event of an emergency when the ship had to return to sea, they would constitute a substantial bar to advancement for the younger ratings on active service who hope to achieve the rank of petty officer or chief petty officer. I know that some of these men are so employed, as I have had the simplest of all ways of finding out. I believe that there is a reluctance on the part of my hon. Friends' Department to employ them in suitable numbers, perhaps as supernumeraries, throughout the whole of the Reserve Fleet, where a man whose time has otherwise largely expired could spend his last years on keeping in the most magnificent trim the highly technical gadgetry of these most complex ships.
My second point is on a somewhat more cheerful note. While on board this great ship, H.M.S. "Vanguard", I discovered that while she has now reverted to a purpose which we will all agree in the House is more suitable, namely, that of being a very appropriate accommodation and training ship while her life continues, she will in time have to be substituted by other no doubt smaller vessels. Nobody wants that time to be hastened in order that any excessive number of changes are brought about. In other words, if cruisers are to become flagships of the Reserve Fleet, any shift from H.M.S. "Vanguard" should not take place until such cruisers

can be made available as will have a long life in the job.
A point I have to mention about the conditions of service in this ship is the little but very delicate matter of the understanding with the Treasury on the officers' counterpart to "Nelson's Blood", "Pusser's bubbly"—the duty—free privileges in the wardroom. I believe that these privileges will terminate in a few months' time in H.M.S. "Vanguard", as she is clearly in a low state of readiness for action, regardless of whether she is suitable.
Can my hon. Friend take a fresh grip on this subject and see if he can reach an understanding with his opposite numbers in the Treasury about the designation of ships to be entitled to duty-free privileges? It is a tricky problem, because clearly there are large numbers of ships almost ready for sea which are almost uninhabited. Also, ships which are inhabited may not be, as at present, particularly ready for sea. Her Majesty's Customs may feel that ships that are not particularly ready for sea are not particularly suitable for off-shore privileges. May I ask that the designation, de-designation, un-de-designation and re-unde-designation of these ships shall he taken firmly in hand so that the Treasury have no doubt which ships likely to be inhabited as depot ships, and also which ships being nearly ready for sea, can decently have these duty-free privileges.

7.18 p.m.

Lieut.-Commander S. L. C. Maydon: I must confess to being in some difficulty, because the matter I want to raise comes partly under Vote 1, partly under Vote 6 and partly under Vote 10, all of which are due for consideration tonight. I cannot say with truth that this matter comes exclusively under any one of those Votes, but I must be guided by you, Mr. Hoy, and by the rules of order.
The point to which I wish to draw the attention of the Parliamentary and Financial Secretary is the staffing of the Royal Navy Engineering College at Manadon, which strictly speaking does not come under this Vote, although the pay of those concerned does and the establishment is covered by Vote 6, which covers scientific services and therefore scientific training, and the bricks and mortar of the establishment are no doubt comprised


under Vote 10, which we will be considering later. For the convenience of the Committee it may be simpler to raise this point at an early stage.

The Temporary Chairman: If, as the hon. and gallant Member says, his subject is educational, it might come much more appropriately under Vote 5.

Lieut.-Commander Maydon: I understand that Vote 5 is not to be considered tonight, Mr. Hoy.

The Temporary Chairman: I certainly cannot see how this comes under Vote 1, but if the hon. and gallant Gentleman can tell me how it does I shall, of course. be delighted to listen to him.

Lieut.-Commander Maydon: I submit that it comes under Vote 1 because it concerns the pay of the officers who staff this establishment.

The Temporary Chairman: I do not know how far the hon. and gallant Gentleman wishes to go, but this Vote concerns pay only, and not conditions.

Lieut.-Commander Maydon: If I may proceed, Mr. Hoy, perhaps you will be good enough to stop me if I overstep the limits.
In many of these establishments there are staffs of professional officers. That is very right and proper when the training is of such a nature that it needs to be done by officers of the active list of the Royal Navy. There comes a time, however, for scientific training, when the staff, in the opinion of some, should be civilian staff brought in—professors lent by universities, teachers who are not naval officers and the like—rather than exclusively professionally naval—

The Temporary Chairman: I know that the hon. and gallant Member is having some difficulty, but I must point out that those people do not come within this Vote, neither does training. I am sorry that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will riot have an opportunity on Vote 5, but perhaps he may get it when Vote 6 is debated.

Lieut.-Commander Maydon: Thank you Mr. Hoy. In that case, I will await an opportunity on that Vote.

7.22 p.m.

Vice-Admiral John Hughes Hallett: Of two questions that I wish to ask my hon. Friend the first is whether there is to be any change during the coming year in the policy concerning Supplementary List officers. Is it intended to broaden the field of their employment, or is it still intended to confine them to aviation duties? I ask because there is some reference in the Explanatory Notes to the difficulty of obtaining officers with the necessary qualifications from the Dartmouth entry. It would repay the effort necessary to find out whether there are some technical jobs in the Navy that could be performed far more economically, and just as efficiently, by officers on the Supplementary List as by entry officers on a permanent career basis.
My second question refers to the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary yesterday when he moved Vote A. He then referred to the changed qualifications for the entry of officers into Dartmouth. I presume, Mr. Hoy that it is in order to speak on this subject, because this is the Vote by which those officers are paid—

The Temporary Chairman: That may be so, but a study of their conditions certainly does not come within the Vote. I think that here we are pretty narrowly confined to pay itself, and not to conditions.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: Then perhaps I can keep just within the bounds of order by asking whether my hon. Friend is satisfied that money is not to be wasted on this Vote by taking in under the new rules officers with insufficient qualifications.

7.24 p.m.

Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) referred to H.M.S. "Vanguard", which, as he rightly commented, is in the lower state of readiness. It would not be right, under this Vote, to engage in a long debate about duty-free liquor. I would not wish to rob the Committee of that enjoyment, but I also would not wish to rob the hon. Gentleman of his duty-free liquor, which might be the result of a long debate on the subject.
He also paid a well-deserved tribute to the standard achieved, and the pride that people feel on the ships at a high state of reserve. This is the result of the very wise policy of leaving the skeleton crews in their ships for some time so that the men feel that they are their ships, and that, in an emergency, they will sail with them. This has paid an abundant dividend, as I have seen for myself. They take a tremendous pride in keeping the ship very clean, and in a high state of readiness.
I should like to investigate my hon. Friend's point about allowing chief petty officers, particularly in the skilled trades —I think that he mentioned the electronics trade—to serve in that capacity during their fifth and sixth engagements. It is true that, with C.P.O.s generally, we are having to restrict those who wish to continue on a sixth engagement, in order, to some extent, to clear the promotion ladder and improve the career prospects of the younger men. I shall certainly look at the question whether we are screening those billets, and not employing the men in the later stages in that capacity.
I do not know quite how to reply to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wells (Lieut.-Commander Maydon) while keeping within the bounds of order. About 50 per cent. of the serving officers —the "schoolies"—come from Manadon. It is difficult to say more and keep within order, but of that staff I can say that 50 per cent. are officers who come under this Vote.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett) asked whether the Supplementary List was in any way to be broadened. No change in the employment of Supplementary List officers is planned in the next year. Their ranks will continue to be restricted to aviators, but the position might change in a few years' time, and we will certainly consider his representations.
I wondered at one time whether he intended to refer to the Supplementary List or to the Special List—the short-service officers or, in Service parlance, the branch officers—and whether those officers could serve in the capacity mentioned. In any case, no change is in-

tended for the present, but we continue to have it under consideration.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £64,899,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the pay, &amp;c., of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Vote 2. Victualling and Clothing for the Navy

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £12,794,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of victualling and clothing for the Navy, including the cost of victualling establishments at home and abroad, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Willis: I have only one question to ask and it refers to Subhead M. This Vote seems to have increased by 50 per cent. this year, and as there are now 6,000 fewer people serving in the Navy it would be interesting to have an explanation of that increase. I do not know whether or not it results from changes in uniform—something which, by the way, it is not a very good thing for the Admiralty to have done. That type of thing creates a certain amount of ill feeling. I do not want to press this matter unduly, but I should like the hon. Gentleman to let us know something about it.

7.31 p.m.

Miss Vickers: I wish to raise questions under Subhead M and Subhead K which deal with clothing and mess traps. I see that the amount for gratuities for civilian clothing to the W.R.N.S. on discharge is put down as £20,000, the same as for the current year, but gratuities in aid of outfits to petty officers, seamen and reservists have gone down from £38,000 to £27,000. I presume I shall be told that there are fewer of them, but I do not see why the gratuities for the W.R.N.S. who leave the Service should be the same as in the previous year.
The same amount is put down this year as last year for washing and other miscellaneous charges. If the number has decreased, as would appear from the amount allowed for kit upkeep allowances, I should have thought it necessary to change that also. I notice that the amount for


soap and tobacco is less, but for the other materials it is not less.
I should like also to draw attention to the mess traps item, which is considerably down. I hope this does not mean that we are not going to put into our ships more modern gear. All ships should have the extra washing-up machines and all the necessary equipment to make work on board much easier. Also in the furnishing of married quarters the standard should not be allowed to become lower.

7.32 p.m.

Mr. W. A. Wilkins: A point which I proposed to raise on the Supplementary Estimates I shall raise now, as the matter has been brought to our notice. I should like to say a few words about it because there might be a very simple explanation of the whole matter. When one looks in page 22 at the wages table, particularly for the men, a very substantial decrease is indicated. Perhaps the Parliamentary and Financial Secretary may look at some other figures as well, which indicate what I have in mind.
There is a substantial decrease in the payments made and also a decrease in the allowances paid in the case of married men, which suggests that there has been a rather impressive reduction in the number of men employed in the Service, yet, when we come to Subhead M, we find that the increase for clothing, soap and tobacco and allowances in lieu of clothing has considerably increased for the period. I wonder what the explanation for this increase is when there is an apparent decrease in the number of ratings and officers. It is evidently not in soap and tobacco; one cannot imagine that the increase is on those items only.
Is some higher clothing allowance paid? I should be pleased to think that is the probable reason, because I had the experience of trying to buy clothes on the very meagre allowance given us in the First World War. It was very difficult to dress decently on the allowances given then. If this is an increase in the allowance for clothing, one would welcome it, but some explanation should be forthcoming.
I very much regret that I was not present yesterday to take part in the debate on the Supplementary Estimates. I had an engagement in Wales. I should have liked to have taken part because

I regret that so few hon. Members take an interest in the affairs of the Royal Navy. Whatever its functions may be in the modern age, it is a fact that it was the medium whereby the lives of the people of this country were secured in two world wars and it merits great interest on the part of all hon. Members.

7.35 p.m.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: I wish to pursue the question of the increase in the money required for clothing under this Vote and to ask what is the exact nature of the expenditure. I understand from announcements in the Press that a certain amount of changing of the uniform in the Service is in progress. Can my hon. Friend tell us what the changes amount to, whether they are complete or are still in progress, and whether the full cost of the changes is disclosed by these Estimates?
I understand that a certain number of junior ratings, whose class of uniform I forget, are now being changed into blue jackets. Does that involve the abandonment of large stocks of uniform and is expenditure under this head allowed for in the Estimates? Secondly, I do not know whether it is in order to ask, but I should like to know the reason for the change, which must involve a great deal of expenditure. Does anyone really suppose that these young ratings prefer to be dressed as "blue jackets"? I am bound to say that those whom I have asked have expressed a rather emphatic view in the reverse direction. Perhaps we could be enlightened on the subject.

7.37 p.m.

Mr. W. Griffiths: Hon. Members are rightly concerned to seek from the Minister an explanation about the increase in this expenditure, but one class of case certainly has not incurred expenditure from the Admiralty. I take the opportunity of referring to a constituency case, although it may be typical of a kind of case.
It concerns a man who was a Regular sailor who parted company with the Navy, I think by mutual consent. Had he continued in the Navy he had reached the stage at which I think he would not have been a satisfactory servant. I am not concerned for a moment to say very much about that—I apologise to the Minister for springing a personal case on


him without notice—except to say that it was not in any way a question of the sailor being involved in criminal proceedings.
When discharged, this man was sent from the depot with the very minimum of clothing. When I say "minimum" I really mean that. To the best of my recollection it was never denied, in correspondence with the Minister—not the present one, but the previous one—that the sailor had to do the best he could to obtain from mess traps and charitable sources enough clothing to take him to his home. When he attempted to make a new beginning in civilian life, his parents —ordinary working people who could not easily embark on the expenditure of considerable sums—were obliged to borrow to enable their son to have sufficient clothing to look presentable at the employment exchange or to appear before a prospective employer.
If the Minister can tell us that any expenditure on clothing in future will provide in a case such as that of my constituent at least a minimum of clothing—which, I am assured, was not the fact in this case—he will certainly have my sympathy.

7.40 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Howard (St. Ives): I wish to put two very short points to my hon. Friend. First, on the point which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett) made about clothing, I wonder whether my hon. Friend could say whether there is a new design of the seaman's cap, which I think has been under discussion for some time, and whether some standard type has been evolved?
The other point is about mess accommodation in ships, which I mentioned in the general debate yesterday. Unfortunately, there was not sufficient time for an answer to be given to the point I raised. Is it a fact that dish-washing machines are being installed in all the larger ships, and, if so, in what types of ship they are being installed today.

7.41 p.m.

Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: Before dealing with the other questions raised in this debate, perhaps I should refer, first, to the point raised by the hon. Member for

Bristol, South (Mr. Wilkins), who said that the numbers involved in Vote 2, Subhead A, "Salaries and Allowances", have come down. I should explain that they have come down because we have been concentrating our victualling yards. This is part of our general realignment of the Fleet and part of the rundown of shore establishments for a smaller streamlined fleet. We have concentrated on three victualling yards in the eastern area, five in the southern area, three in the south-western area, three in the northern area and three in the Scottish area. Then, we have abroad victualling yards at Malta, Gibraltar, Singapore and Hong Kong. There has been a streamlining, and that, to some extent, accounts for the rundown in Subhead A.
If I may now turn to page 28 of the Estimates, Subhead M, which deals with clothing, etc., four hon. Members have drawn attention to the fact that this subhead has risen almost 50 per cent. Even this figure does not in any way reflect the actual cost of clothing. What we are doing now, and have been doing for many years, is living on our fat. We have been living on our stocks of clothing, and we are coming to a time when this figure will have to start going up. If the figure were to reflect the replacement cost of the items under this subhead, the figure would be nearly £3 million, instead of the £961,000 which we find in the Estimates for the coming year.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett) and my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Howard) both asked about changes made in clothing. No immediate changes are intended. I am sorry to disappoint my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives, but there is at present no new design in view for the seaman's cap.
Now I turn to mess traps, mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Miss Vickers). Here, again, we are living on our cutlery and glass stocks. If we were not living on stocks, the actual figures would be nearer £340,000 in the current year, instead of the £41,000 which is to be seen in the Estimates. Again, I am glad to have this opportunity of saying that it will not show any extravagance if in some future year these figures should go up very


abruptly, when we finish the stocks, which were laid in at the time of Korea and even earlier, for a much bigger fleet. Therefore, we are coming to the time when there will be a marked increase in both these items for the same reason.
The hon. Member for the Manchester, Exchange (Mr. W. Griffiths) asked whether civilian clothing was provided on discharge. I should like to look at the case which he mentioned, and not answer "off the cuff", but, normally, of course, a man who has served for some time in the Royal Navy, and goes out with a pension would also go out with a terminal grant, which, under present arrangements, is about three times the annual pension. This may be very substantial indeed, running into £500 or even £700.
However, I do not know the circumstances of this case, and would prefer to Fake it up and write to the hon. Gentleman. We would not wish it to be believed that people are discharged from he Royal Navy with nothing in which o go away, but, equally, I would have 1hought that someone who had done a long period of service would probably have provided for his future to the extent of a set of clothes for the time when he left the Navy. I think that I have now dealt with the important points which have arisen in the debate.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: My hon. Friend has not referred to the point about the change in uniform which I raised, because it was only last week, when some Members of the Select Committee on Estimates visited one big naval hospital, that we certainly saw all the sick berth attendants dressed in blue jackets, and we got the impression that this change had only just been made. Actually, we misunderstood that, and that is the only point I was trying to make—whether the cost of a change of this nature is reflected in these Estimates.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I should have to describe that as a little local difficulty. I was not aware that there had been a small change here, but it was not a policy change.

Mr. Howard: Could my hon. Friend tell us something about the dish-washing machine?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: It is our policy to try to provide up-to-date equipment in Her

Majesty's new ships. It is a question of space, to some extent, and I absolutely agree with the point which was made both by the hon. Lady the Member for Devonport and by the hon. Member for St. Ives that it is extremely important that we should minimise the chores and speed them up, because if things can be done by machines rather than by manpower we shall be saving space in the ships and altogether making them happier ships.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £12,794,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of victualling and clothing for the Navy, including the cost of victualling establishments at home and abroad, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

VOTE 6. SCIENTIFIC SERVICES

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £17,805,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of scientific services, including a grant in aid to the National Institute of Oceanography, and a subscription to the International Hydrographic Bureau, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Vote 10. Works, Buildings and Repairs at Home and Abroad

Motion made, and Question proposed.
That a sum, not exceeding £12,941,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of works, buildings and repairs at home and abroad, including the cost of superintendence. purchase of sites, grants and other charges connected herewith, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

7.48 p.m.

Mr. Willis: Having "missed the boat" on one occasion, I do not intend to miss it on this occasion. This Committee has lost a pearl in the contribution I would have made, but never mind, I will return to that question some other time.
With respect to Vote 10, I should to ask one question, and that, of course as I think the Civil Lord will guess relates to H.M.S. "Caledonia". I should like to know whether there is any possibility of the replacement of the living accommodation being started this year This accommodation, which I think everybody who has seen it will agree is second-class, has been for many years considered to be temporary, and it is


about time that it was replaced by permanent accommodation. This is an artificer establishment, and as artificers are difficult to recruit and to keep it is important that something should be done. I wonder whether the Civil Lord could tell us when he expects the job to he commenced.

7.49 p.m.

The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith): I have a good deal of sympathy with what the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) had to say about the accommodation for artificer apprentices in H.M.S. "Caledonia". I appreciate his anxiety that these important members of the Navy should be well housed, but I am sure that he will realise that in these matters we must have a reasonable order of priority.
Money is not as abundant as one would like it to be and the Admiralty's policy in this matter has been to give priority to instructional accommodation first of all. One can train a good artificer even if one has bad accommodation to live in, but one cannot train him without proper instructional facilities. Therefore, those have been given the priority. We are, however, gradually coming to the end of that programme and, without wanting to tie myself down to any definite date, within the fairly near future, but not this year, we shall be starting on building improved accommodation at "Caledonia".

7.51 p.m.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: I should like to know to what extent Vote 10 in this financial year is affected by the very welcome announcement in paragraph 106 of the First Lord's Explanatory Statement. I take it that the paragraph means that the expenditure which used to be classified under Vote 8 in respect of electric lighting and other services in buildings is now in process of being transferred to Vote 10. If that is so, I respectfully offer my congratulations to my hon. Friend for having brought about this notable reform. I understand that it was first recommended to their Lordships shortly before the First World War, but for upwards of fifty years has been successfully obstructed. It now looks as if the common sense thing has been done.
I hope that the paragraph means that and that the Vote which we are now dis-

cussing is on all fours with the corresponding works Votes in other Departments and that it represents the total cost of buildings and not the cost less the cost of their essential services. I hope that my hon. Friend will confirm that that is the meaning of paragraph 106.

Mr. G. R. Howard: I should like to know from my hon. Friend whether there is any form of interchangeability in the provision of married quarters abroad whereby one Service which does not require all its married quarters can have pooling arrangements so that another Service which could make use of it may have that accommodation.

Miss Vickers: I should like to know whether the new construction of married quarters for officers, ratings and certain key civilian staffs will cover under "key civilian staffs" some of the dockyard employees who are returning from Malta and Singapore. They are having great difficulty in obtaining accommodation. Are they to be included among civilian staff in the same way as ratings are to be included in the Navy staff?

7.54 p.m.

Mr. Galbraith: My hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Miss Vickers) asked whether we could not provide quarters for civilian employees coming back from abroad. I realise the difficulty in finding accommodation of this sort, particularly in the dockyard areas. We have housing committees which are set up to allocate such houses as are available either on Admiralty estates or on council estates, that is, houses which originally have been sponsored by the Admiralty. But my hon. Friend will appreciate that houses for civilian personnel could not come under the provision here. I hope that that answers her point.
I have been asked about the pooling of married quarters. I do not think that I have come across any area yet where there is a surplus of married quarters so that this might be done, but the Services are not stupid and will not allow married quarters to remain empty if sister Services want to use them. I think, however, that the question is largely hypothetical.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett) wanted to know what was happening to Votes 8 and 10. His assumption is largely correct.


The new arrangements will not be in operation immediately in the coming financial year, but they should be fully in operation by 1960. This means that the whole of Vote 8, shore work outside the dockyard will be run by the one Department, the new Navy Works Department, which will also run Vote 10.

Mr. Simon Wingfield Digby: It seems to me that the item for repair and maintenance under Subhead E is rather high still, considering that the total of the Vote is down to just under £13 million. It also seems rather high in relation to expenditure on major works, which no doubt is much reduced by the high appropriation-in-aid. Withtheclosing down of a number of establishments, and now that wartime arrears have been worked off, I had rather hoped that the repairs item would have been a little lower. Why has it been necessary to keep it so relatively high, as it appears to me?

Mr. Galbraith: I am quite surprised at the comment of my hon. Friend. expected him to say the very reverse. I feel that we are not spending quite enough on repairs and maintenance. My hon. Friend referred to the backlog of repairs. but I regret to say that that still has not been put right and if anything this provision is a little on the low side. The benefits which he had hoped would come from closures has not reached us fully yet in this respect.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £12,941,000. be granted to Her Majesty. to defray the expense of works, buildings and repairs at home and abroad, including the cost of superintendence, purchase of sites, grants and other charges connected therewith, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Vote 11. Miscellaneous Effective Services

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £8,324,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of various miscellaneous effective services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

7.57 p.m.

Miss Vickers: I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend on the fact that the expenditure on telegrams, telephones

and postage under this Vote is reduced by the large amount of £140,000. This is very creditable, considering that actually the cost of sending telegrams has gone up. I should like to know whether the increased allowance for ministers of religion means that the number has increased, or whether it means that individual ministers are receiving better pay, as I believe is the case with ministers who are not in the Services. I shall not repeat what I said yesterday, but I should be grateful if my hon. Friend could answer the questions, which I asked then about canteens.

7.58 p.m.

Mr. Willis: I should like to have more information about Subhead J which is entitled "Finance of an Admiralty Company (S. G. Brown, Ltd.)." We are giving or advancing to this company a sum of £250,000 under terms and conditions to be decided in consultation with the Treasury. We are told that this is because of a change in the range of its products Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what this means? We want to know what are the changes in its range of products and also what is the present capital value of the company. Also it would be interesting to know the terms on which these loans to the company are negotiated.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: Can my hon. Friend say a word about the rather strange increase under Subhead MM, "Instruction of Naval Personnel at Outside Establishments"? Is it because there are more pilots to be trained this year or because the charge for training them has increased?

8.1 p.m.

Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: First, I will answer the question of my hon. and gallant Friend about training and the cost. It is a bit of both. The cost has gone up and also, as the result of improved recruiting, particularly for the Supplementary List, more pilots will have to he trained.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) asked me about S. G. Brown, Limited. for which we are proposing to provide some extra money. This is a firm of instrument makers which was acquired in 1940 in order to secure better production for instruments required by the Navy. I can assure the hon. Gentleman and the Committee that it is not our policy to hold on to firms of this kind which are not


strictly connected with the naval service. Certainly 1940 seems a long way away.
As long as we remain in control, the company is owned by the Admiralty. I regret to say that I do not know its capital value, but obviously it is substantially in excess of what we are putting in. The firm needs this money in order to expand its business. It makes complicated and delicate instruments for which we think there is a good market abroad, particularly in America. However, I do not want the Committee to think that the Admiralty wishes to hold on to the firm for ever.

Mr. Willis: Why not?

Mr. Galbraith: One can understand hon. Gentlemen opposite asking that question, but my hon. Friends may wonder why it is under our control at all. The answer is that we try to divest ourselves of anything ancillary to defence whenever the appropriate moment comes. That moment has not come yet. The money is needed so that the business can make the most of its opportunities, and that is why we are putting money into it.
The hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) asked me a question about ministers of religion. She is right. The capitation fee is going up. Last night she asked me also a question about canteens and I am grateful to her for not repeating her speech this evening. I will answer the point she made then. I agree absolutely with her that the condition of our canteens is not anything like 100 per cent. of what it should be. Again, this is the old problem of not having enough money to do what we want. It is much more important that the money available to be spent on shore works should be spent on accommodation, on galleys and on those places where the sailors actually spend their time. These canteens, important though they may be, are used only for about three-quarters of an hour a day, so I am advised.
Nevertheless, I do not want my hon. Friend to think that canteens are the Cinderella of the Service. The two in which she is particularly interested are those at Ernesettle and Bull Point. Plans to improve them are being produced at present but naturally I cannot give her any guarantee of when the work will be

carried out. As my hon. Friend probably knows, a new canteen was built in her constituency in William Street last year, and to show the importance which the Admiralty attaches to this work in its right priority, I can tell her that an Admiralty Fleet Order was issued on the subject only this month.
There is one other point I want to make. Anyone listening to what my hon. Friend said last night might think that the canteens were in a shocking condition. I agree that aesthetically they leave a lot to be desired, but I would point out that they come up to the proper standards of health and the demands of the factory inspectors.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £8,324,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of various miscellaneous effective services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Vote 13. Non-effective Services

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £27,127,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of non-effective services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

8.6 p.m.

Mr. Willis: I wish to make a few comments about pensions. It appears from this Estimate that the increases in pension and gratuities will not increase the Estimate; in other words, the Navy has made a gesture which does not appear to cost it any more. I do not know about the other Services.
I am interested in what has happened, because the Grigg Committee, upon whose recommendations the new proposals were based, said that:
The Admiralty scheme was directly related to pay at the point of retirement…
The Committee said that this was apparently quite a different scheme from the one proposed by it in respect of the other Services. I am not altogether happy about the Admiralty scheme. The Report continued:
The Admiralty's engagement structure is, however, somewhat different from that of the other two Services, and we do not regard it as absolutely essential that the pension schemes should be identical. That being so, we suggest that the Admiralty might be left free to devise a scheme of its own to suit the needs


of the Royal Navy, provided that the cost is roughly the same as that of applying to the Royal Navy the scheme we recommend for the other two Services.
The recommendations of the Grigg Committee applied to the Army and the Air Force and said nothing about the Navy. The recommendations were not that the Navy should be fitted into the scheme for the Army and Air Force. Now, however, we find that each scheme is the same. It is difficult to work out the scheme in respect of individual ratings but in future, according to the White Paper dealing with the scheme, pensions will normally vary with the rank held at the time of discharge and total length of service. At present, these also vary with the length of service in each rank.
Last night I drew attention to the effect of this upon the artificer branches, who get-very little out of the scheme. I understand that a chief artificer will get only a few shillings. I cannot give the exact figures because I have not found it possible to work them out from the White Paper, so I need more information. It can be seen that for anyone who has held the rank of chief petty officer for a long time the scheme will not provide very much. It gives little indeed to artificers.
Why was the Navy pushed into the same scheme as the other Services? I presume that that was due to Treasury pressure. The Treasury is ridden with a desire to compel all Services to be exactly the same in respect of pay, pensions, gratuities and everything else. Personally, I am not altogether happy that that is a good policy. It may be easy from the Treasury point of view, but from the point of view of the Services it is not altogether right.
What happened to the Admiralty scheme, and why has the Navy gone into the present scheme when the Grigg Committee recommended something quite different? It may be that the scheme which the Admiralty had in mind, as indicated in paragraph 115 of the Grigg Report, would have had the same effect. One does not know what that scheme was, but even if it had the same effect, it seems that the increase would have been of such a substantial character that the criticism which I am now making would not have arisen.
Over many years I have spoken about pensions. For two or three years. pen-

sions have been more important than pay. That is why I am disappointed with the results for the branches of the Navy which I have mentioned and for which it is difficult to get recruits. The hon. Gentleman knows all the problems of this matter as well as I do, and I do not want to go over them again, but I hope that we can hear something about this matter.

8.13 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Howard: I want to refer to Subhead F, under which there is a decrease of £9,500. There appears to be an anomaly. I believe that my figures are correct. A chief petty officer who retired in 1952 has a pension at the rate of £120 a year. Retirement in 1956 would have made that £200 and in 1959 it would have been approximately £360 a year.
Three men retiring on those dates might be working in the same employment in civil life, with the added annoyance that they would all be subject to recall, possibly to the same sort of job, until they were 55. I do not know what the position would be if a Pensions (Increase) Bill were brought in this year. If there is such a Measure, I hope that the Government will consider bringing these pensions into line, because it is the children of these men who are our possible recruits for the Navy of the future.

8.14 p.m.

Mr. Wilkins: My remarks closely follow those of the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard). Can the hon. Gentleman remind us when the last pensions review took place? Under Subhead F, there is a reference to the Appendix to the Navy List, and to the Order in Council of 28th January, 1958, but that relates to ratings retiring prematurely. Below that is a paragraph which states that pensioners not entitled to pensions at current rates may receive increases of pension under conditions similar to those of the current Pensions (Increase) Acts.
By sheer coincidence, one of the "old brigade" came to see me last Saturday week. He had joined the Royal Navy in 1900, at a time when, as he told me, sailors had to buy everything for themselves, their clothing, bedding and kit. He reminded me that today we provide most of those things, and in some cases


all of them, and provide a substantial gratuity when men finish their service, giving that as an inducement to recruiting.
This, again, is the case of the chief petty officer mentioned by the hon. Member for St. Ives. His original pension was £76 per annum. I do not want to make a personal case of this, because the same circumstances probably apply to a few other men, if not too many. His pension is now £145 per annum. I was interested in the figures which the hon. Member for St. Ives gave to the Committee. The number of people involved must be very small and, although I do not imagine that he can do it now, I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to say whether, in any pensions review, the claims of those people will be taken into account.
If it is possible to get the information, I should like to know how many of these people are still left, how many would be affected by any pensions increase and how much such an increase would cost.

8.16 p.m.

Miss Vickers: There is an enormous decrease, about £¾ million, under Subhead A. I presume that that is due to a fall in numbers, but I should like to know how many men come under that heading. I should have thought that it was high time for pensions to be reviewed. We like to see savings, but not with pensions, and I should have thought that we might now be able to increase pensions for existing pensioners.
I am glad to see from Subhead D that there has been an increase in the amount paid in pensions to widows, children, and other relatives of deceased officers. The amount has increased by £92,000. I presume that there has been a fall in numbers and that that means that some of those people have had further increases in their pensions.
There is another decrease under Subhead F. We have to remember the magnificent service which these people have rendered the country and the fact that they see present-day recruits offered much better conditions. It also has to be remembered that the real value of their pensions has fallen. In view of their magnificent service. I think that they are due for an increase.
There is one matter which I should like my hon. Friend to take up with the Treasury. That is the fact that pensioners

still have to pay Income Tax on money they receive for any kind of medal which they have earned. For instance, the holder of the D.S.M. receives 6d. a day. Even that very small amount may be subject to taxation. Some pensioners are still working and have to pay tax on their pensions, which comes very harshly if they work overtime. Others may be completely retired. It is time that there was a review and that better pensions were paid for those who have given their services to their country.

8.19 p.m.

Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) and the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) ask why the total amount under Subhead A had decreased by about £¾ million. That is not, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East suggested, because we have given with one hand and taken back with the other. It shows the amalgamation of three different sums and the net result is a decrease of £778,000. The retirement pension expenditure will increase by no less than £808,000 in the coming year.
To offset that there will be a saving in terminal grants of £875,000. That is obvious because the rundown has been to a large extent effected. There will also be a saving on capital grant, which also comes under this heading and is more appropriately known as the "golden bowler" scheme. In this case, the saving will be about £720,000. The net result will be that although pensions will rise by £808,000 the two offsetting items will mean a total decrease on the Vote of £778,000.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East also asked what had happened to the Admiralty scheme. The Grigg Committee did not compel us to set up our own scheme; it merely suggested that we should not be dragooned into introducing the same scheme as operated in the other Services. We looked into the possibility of introducing our own scheme and discussed the matter with the other two Services. After considerable discussion we came to the conclusion that we might as well accept the same scheme as was operating in the other Services. We were trying to relate our scheme more exactly to our points of retirement, and that made our pensions largely out of step with the pensions paid by the other two Services at any particular time in a


man's life. We thought that in the general interest we ought to row in and accept the same arrangements.
The hon. Member was right when he said that the rating's pension is geared to his final rank multiplied by the number of years' service. He went on to say that this provision adversely affected the artificer branch. It is true that that branch will benefit only to a small extent, and chief artificers will get an increase of only about £50 a year under the new scheme. But we ought to remember that artificers have always had very much quicker promotion than people in other branches. Earlier in their Service life they are getting very much more pay, and they have always had it.
It is one of the jealousies of other branches that the artificers have always been so well rewarded. I do not think that it is unfair, now that the new structure is being introduced, that the artificer should get less and everyone else very much more, thereby narrowing the differential at the end point. The artificer still gains in getting larger rewards earlier on in his career.
My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) pointed out that there are always hardships when a new pensions scheme is introduced, and I agree. There always are people who fall just on the wrong side of the date line and who quite understandably feel victimised. It may be that there are three chief petty officers who will each receive a different pension as a result of retiring in different years, but there is no easy solution to this problem.
The Government have said that as a result of the recommendations made by the Grigg Committee in respect of all three Services they will consider, roughly every two years, pay and pensions conditions to make sure that they keep approximately in step with possible rises in the cost of living and with commensurate standards in civil life. But I do not think that we can retrospectively adjust the pensions in one branch of the public service only. The Government have made statements on this point, as did Sir James Grigg, who understood that on the narrow ground of recruiting he c3uld not recommend something which would have to be applied only in this part of the Government service. The Government are considering the question,

but I am not in a position tonight—and certainly in a debate on a single Vote—to make any further statements.
My hon. Friend the Member for Devonport, under Subhead D, said that she was pleased to see that the pensions and gratuities paid to widows, children and other relatives of deceased officers had risen. It is true that, with effect from the end of last year, women who had been widowed recently received an increase, but the whole of the £92,000 cannot be put down to that improvement; £57,000 of it arises from increased pensions, and another £32,000 arises from the very strange reason that the Paymaster-General has just introduced a system of mechanised payments and is also staggering them, so that they do not all come at a rush. He is trying to ensure a level loading throughout the year. The introduction of mechanised payments and the other adjustments mean that a number of people will receive an extra three week's payment in the coming year, and that accounts for £32,000 of the £92,000.
I shall certainly consider the point raised by the hon. Member for Bristol. South (Mr. Wilkins).

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £27,127,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of non-effective services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Vote 14. Merchant Shipbuilding and Repair

Motion made, and Question proposed.
That a sum, not exceeding £16,900, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the Directorate of Merchant Shipbuilding and Repairs and of certain miscellaneous expenses, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

8.26 p.m.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: The third paragraph of the Explanatory Notes, on page 211, says:
As a result the Vote is now small, but it has been retained in order to bring out the Admiralty's continued responsibility as the production authority for the merchant shipbuilding, ship repairing and marine engineering industries and for maintaining contact with these industries on all matters of common concern.
How far has the Admiralty faced the responsibility imposed upon it by this


paragraph? What concern is it showing with regard to declining orders for shipbuilding, and, even more important at the moment, declining orders for ship repairing? In my constituency there is growing anxiety among those engaged in the ship-repairing industry.
On Tyneside, in general we have a higher number of unemployed in ship repairing than we have had for many years. It does not appear that future prospects are very bright and I wish to ask the hon. Gentleman whether they will become brighter as a result of what the Admiralty is called on to do under this Vote. Thousands of workers in my constituency are concerned about this matter. They wish to know whether there is a future for them in the industry and it would be helpful to have some reassurance on the matter.
In view of the competition for new orders and ship repairing, I wish to know whether the Admiralty is making representations to the Government to lift the nonsensical embargo which was placed some time ago on the provision of certain ships for foreign buyers. We know that restrictions on speed, capacity and other things were imposed for various ships because of the cold war. It was thought that some of these vessels might be converted from use for commercial purposes to naval purposes. I do not think that that argument applies in the day of the hydrogen bomb and I should like to think that the Admiralty was using its influence to ensure that any such restrictions which still apply will be removed.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will inform me about future prospects for ship repairing, particularly for Tyneside. The number of unemployed is substantial. Many men do not know of any further orders coming in and this causes great anxiety.

8.30 p.m.

Lieut.-Commander C. Maydon: I wish to ask whether the Civil Lord can give the Committee any report of the progress of the Committee on Nuclear Powered Ships, which bears his name. Can he tell us how frequently the Committee is meeting and how many meetings have already been held? We read in the newspapers that the Russian icebreaker "Lenin" which, we are told, is nuclear powered, is almost ready to go

to sea. The Americans are constructing a vessel which, I understand, is to be called the "Savannah" and is also nuclear powered. As we are predominantly a maritime nation I feel that this country should be in the forefront in this business.
No one would contend that we should rush to a shipyard and lay down a vessel without giving the matter due consideration. From the very little knowledge which many of us have managed to glean on this matter we recognise that for some time ahead a vessel powered by this new form of engine is most unlikely to be an economic cargo carrier. But I do not think that is any reason to stand back and let other countries take the lead. I feel that in the near future Britain should embark on such a building project and get one of these ships afloat so that we may learn from actual experience of the difficulties and limitations which may be encountered.

Mr. Wilkins: The constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) are suffering from a large amount of unemployment due to the laying up of ships in that area. This results in pressure being exerted on some hon. Members and the argument being advanced that it is time that we thought in terms of nationalising this industry. Would there be any objection by the Admiralty if we borrowed the first phrase which appears on page 211 of the Navy Estimates:
On the outbreak of war in 1939 the Government brought into operation the planned control of the country's entire shipbuilding and ship-repair resources, thus securing co-ordination of design, allocation of Government shipbuilding to commercial yards and the requisite priority of labour and material."?

8.35 p.m.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: I wish to ask my hon. Friend one or two questions arising from the serious issues referred to by the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough). I listened carefully to what my hon. Friend had to say on the subject yesterday and I suggest that it would clear our minds and be helpful were he to make an authoritative statement in amplification of the remarks that he made yesterday, if he is in a position to do so.
In the first place, while we all understand that the major cause of the decline in orders is the general depression of the


shipbuilding industries throughout the world, to what extent is it true to say that the United Kingdom is proportionately losing more orders than other countries? If it is a fact that we are going backwards relatively compared with our competitors, to what extent is the difficulty due to our prices being too high and to what extent is it due to the dates of delivery being uncertain?
One sees assertions made in the Press, sometimes in one direction and somermes in the other. I should like to know whether the Admiralty has formed any opinion of its own on this very important matter.

8.36 p.m.

Mr. Willis: I should like to ask the Civil Lord a question which I put to him last night. It concerns Scotland, which is also faced with this problem. We understand that in Scotland this year the shipbuilding industry will suffer more than last year and that next year it will, in fact, suffer more than this year. Therefore, for two or three years the outlook is exceedingly bleak.
The only question that I want to ask the hon. Gentleman, because our time has almost run out, is: what is the Admiralty able to do and what is it doing? It would assist us very considerably in Scotland if we could be given some hopeful news about this industry. The Civil Lord may know the position himself, but it is certainly a very bleak prospect indeed for next year and I think that he ought to tell us what is being done to meet it.

8.37 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Howard: I see that on page 211 of the Estimates it is said that the Admiralty is endeavouring to assist whenever possible in the procurement of scarce materials and components. I had a case recently of a go-ahead shipyard in the South-West which was in trouble over getting a special type of steel plate for ship repairing. In the Admiralty there was considerable difficulty, although the local people said that they could supply it.
I said a few words about consulting the Civil Lord and then I found that the steel plate was procured very quickly indeed. I hope that these words will be noted in the right place, that the next time those locally concerned will be able to

produce it easily and quickly and that the obstructive elements in Queen Anne's Mansions may be a little less obstructive on future occasions.
I should like to support fully what my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Lieut. Commander Maydon) has said. This is a most important matter. We have stressed it so often that we should be told as much as possible about how this work on nuclear powered ships is going on. We have seen pictures of the "Lenin" afloat and I think that anything we can be told will be most useful, as this is a sphere of marine engineering in which I feel that we are not pressing quite so far ahead as we might do.

8.39 p.m.

Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: I suppose that tonight I ought to be able to make a better speech than I did last night, because last night was really a rehearsal of arguments on some points that have been put forward this evening. It is, however, very difficult for me to answer in any way other than I answered last night.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) talked about declining orders for shipbuilding and the difficulties over repair work. When he asked what the Admiralty intended to do about it, I do not know whether he was hoping that the Admiralty might be able to send some of their naval vessels for repair in civilian yards. if that is what he was hoping, I am sorry to have to say to him that there is an almost minimal chance of that happening because our own Royal Dockyards, as he probably knows, have been reduced in number and the ones kept have been kept at the right number to deal with a Fleet of the existing size.
The outlook for ship-repairing depends upon an increase in world trade and improvements in the freight rate. That is the short answer, and it happens to be the true one. Whether it is palatable or not is another matter.

Mr. Fernyhough: Would the Civil Lord like to say something on the point I raised concerning the embargo list? There is a rumour that orders have been given, and we want to do something about that in the future.

Mr. Galbraith: It is true that immediately after the war there were various


restrictions but, as result of negotiations recently between the various countries represented on the Consultative Committee, restrictions on building and repair in ships for the Eastern bloc have been reduced. I am satisfied that they are now so few that they do not affect any ordinary merchant ship. Warships. of course, are in another category.

Mr. Fernyhough: When the hon. Gentleman says that restrictions are few, may I recall that we lost one order solely because we wanted a restricted speed? It was ridiculous. The people for whom that ship was intended said, "It will mean making two trips instead of three, because of the distance they have to go within any given period, because the speed is restricted." Therefore, they went somewhere else with their order. I do not want to lose such orders.

Mr. Galbraith: Of course, and I quite understand the point made by the hon. Gentleman; but that was three years ago. There have been improvements and liberalisations since then. The most important thing is that we must go along with our Allies in this matter. We cannot go ahead of the times. There has been very considerable liberalising and I imagine that if a country wanted a ship of the nature which the hon. Gentleman described there would be no obstacle to having it built in this country.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wells (Lieut. Commander Maydon) asked me various questions about nuclear propulsion for ships. Again, I really do not know that I can add a great deal to what I said last night. I do not know whether he was in the Chamber when I wound up the debate, and, of course, he has not had an opportunity of reading my statement in HANSARD, because it was not published today. It will appear tomorrow. I do not want to take up the time of the Committee repeating what I said last night.
My hon. and gallant Friend asked me how many times my committee had met. The answer, and I speak from memory, is seven or eight times. I quite understand how impatient hon. Members are but this is a very difficult and complicated thing. The two foreign ships that have been talked about employ a system of propulsion which is not anything like economic. The first ships that we

produce probably will not be economic, but we want them to be within sight of being economic. Otherwise, the money will very largely have been wasted.
The hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Wilkins) had an answer for these difficulties, as so many hon. Members of the Opposition have. It was, "Just wave a wand, nationalise the industry, and everything is apparently going to be all right." That will not do. A great international industry like shipbuilding and ship-repairing depends upon international trade. Only when international trade is booming will we get an increase in ship-repairing and particularly in shipbuilding. I am afraid, therefore, that the hon. Member's suggestions would not produce the improvement that he seeks.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett) asked me about what he called "proportionately going backwards"—that is, the tonnage that we were building in this country compared with other countries. It is true that other countries have gone ahead and built more tonnage than we have done, but we have maintained a steady production for a long number of years and our order books are carefully balanced. It is not a question merely of tonnage, but it concerns also the ancillary industries.
Foreign countries, Japan in particular, are building large tankers which do not have a great deal of ancillary equipment to be put in them. It is much better to have a balanced industry such as we have, with not only tankers and large ore carriers, but passenger ships also.

Mr. Fernyhough: When tonnage figures are published, could the Minister arrange also to publish the respective values? If the values were published, we would not appear so low down in the list. Everybody knows that a 20,000-ton liner is worth 100,000 tons of tankers.

Mr. Galbraith: That is a very good point. It is one which has often occurred to me and I shall certainly look into it. It is a question not only of tonnage, but of value. We in this country build not only the larger ships: we build small ships which are of great value. There is in addition, of course, the naval building programme.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) asked what the Admiralty


was doing. He seemed to think that it had no function to perform. The experience quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) shows, however, that a few whispered words of the Admiralty's interest sometimes produce what one wants. The Admiralty is the sponsor Department of the industry. It might be called, not the fairy godmother, but the kind, avuncular relative who looks at the ills of the industry and tries to help it to health.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £16,900, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the Directorate of Merchant Shipbuilding and Repairs and of certain miscellaneous expenses, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March. 1960.

Vote 15. Additional Married Quarters

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of certain additional married quarters at home, which will come in course of payment during he year ending on the 31st day of March. 1960.

8.48 p.m.

Mr. Wingfield Digby: I hope that my hon. Friend the Civil Lord will be able to tell us something about the married quarters programme. It is noticeable that in the Estimates the amount of expenditure in the coming year—£900,000—is somewhat below that of recent years. The explanation is probably that one programme is coming to an end and another is beginning, because it is also noticeable that a new programme of £2 million is being started, although only £20,000 is to be spent on it in the coming year. The Committee might like to know where this money is to be spent. Is it to be devoted to further married quarters in the home ports, for example?
It is well known that in comparison with the other two Services. the Royal Navy is badly off for married quarters, because it started building them much later in the day. In the Army Estimates, however, a very large sum is devoted this year to the building of married quarters. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to give us some assurance that this new programme will make good some of that disadvantage. Perhaps he may be able to indicate some of the places where the married quarters are to be built.

8.50 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Howard: I should like to support what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby) about married quarters for the Service, because we all know that this is a serious problem, especially at air stations. In paragraph 3 on page 215 we read that
Building is normally financed under the Acts only when the quarters are suitably sited and designed for civilian occupation in the event of their no longer being required by the Admiralty.
I suppose that this would apply where naval air stations are closed down and are no longer required.
Does it mean that before being offered for sale privately in such cases the houses are offered to the other Services, or can they be disposed of at once? Secondly, are they then sold to local authorities or to private buyers?
I do not suppose that my hon. Friend can answer all these questions now, but perhaps he can give some indication and can give further information later. If the houses are sold to local authorities, how do the authorities pay for them?

Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: My hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby) was concerned about what he thought was a decline in the married quarters programme. This year we are to spend slightly under f 1 million, which is a little lower than usual, but that is because the second housing loan is running out and the new loan has not begun. Building under the new loan is due to begin in 1960-61. This new programme, together with the number of houses built under previous programmes, should provide married quarters for about 25 per cent. of entitled officers and about 20 per cent. of entitled ratings.
I know that those figures may seem rather low, but we have discovered that sometimes people do not like living in married quarters, and we feel that it would be a mistake to reach the stage at which there were so many married quarters that we had to force people to live in them.
In addition to married quarters there are furnished hirings, which come under a separate Vote. Married quarters and furnished hirings together will eventually provide accommodation or housing for about one-third of the entitled people.
My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West wanted to know where we should build the houses. In principle we shall build them in outlandish places like air stations, where there are no other houses. When we dispose of this property the normal practice is to offer it to the other Services and, if they do not want it, to offer it to the highest bidder.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of certain additional married quarters at home, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Navy Supplementary Estimate, 1958–59

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £42,200,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1959, for expenditure beyond the sum already provided in the grants for Navy Services for the year.

SCHEDULE



Sums not exceeding



Supply Grants
Appropriations in Aid


Vote
£
£


1. Pay, &amp;c, of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines
Cr. 1,225,000
—


2. Victualling and Clothing for the Navy
700,000
*—300,000


3. Medical Establishments and Ser vices
145,000
*—15,000


4. Civilians employed on Fleet Services
295,000
—


5. Educational Services
40,000
—


6. Scientific Services
Cr.200,000
200,000

Sums not exceeding



Supply Grants
Appropriations in Aid


Vote
£
£


8. Shipbuilding, Repairs and Main tenance,&amp;c.— Section I—Personnel
730,000
130,000


Section II—Matériel
4,800,000
*—2,400,000


Section III— Contract Work
34,150,000
*—1,200,000


9. Naval Armaments
Cr.575,000
*—1,050,000


10. Works, Buildings and Repairs at Home and Abroad
1,075,000
*—2,275,000


11. Miscellaneous Effective Services
Cr.1,040,000
1,140.000


12. Admiralty Office
975,000
—


13. Non-Effective Services
2,330,000
—


15. Additional Married Quarters
—
*—230,000


Total, Navy (Supplementary), 1958–59
£42,200,000
*—6,000,000


*Deficit.

Mr. Wilkins: There is a welcome decrease in Subhead F, of Vote 9, of £1,650,000. May we have an explanation of that decrease?

8.55 p.m.

Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: There is a reduction of £1·65 million on guns, torpedoes, mines and ammunition. That merely means that we have reviewed our stocks. We have considered the day-to-day requirements with the rundown of the ships, and this is our new assessment of what is needed to supply the Fleet with up-to-date equipment.

Mr. Wilkins: I was merely trying to discover whether it was partially due to the rundown of ships.

Question put and agreed to.

AIR ESTIMATES

Vote I. Pay, &c., of the Air Force

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum. not exceeding £109,200,000, he granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the pay, &amp;c., of the Air Force, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

8.56 p.m.

Mr. William Ross: We are dealing in Vote 1 with the pay and allowances of 180,000 officers and men serving in the Royal Air Force. There is an increase of £7·29 million. I appreciate that this is due to the greater number of Regulars, and so on. One of the reasons given by the Government for the increase is the greater number of families abroad. If that be so, it behoves us to look very carefully at Subhead E, which deals with education allowances
issued for the purpose of assisting officers, airmen and airwomen in the secondary, vocational and technical education of their children when the personnel are serving abroad".
At first sight, the increase in relation to officers from £179,000 to £500,000, and in relation to airmen and airwomen from £31,000 to £90,000, looks fairly good. When we take into account the Minister's statement in the Estimates that there are a greater number of families abroad it does not look so good.
I am far from happy about the relationship of participation in education allowances as between airmen and officers. We managed to say a word or two on this matter when we were discussing the main Air Estimates on Thursday, 5th March. The aggregate amount estimated for airmen and airwomen would be very much greater than it is if we had solved the problem of meeting the educational needs of the children of airmen.
The educational facilities available to the children of airmen should not be related to rank. They should be equal for officers and men. That is a principle to which we have attached considerable attention in the past in the part of Britain from which I come, where we have not a public school system such as there is south of the Border. The generally accepted principle in Scotland is that everybody goes to the nearest school, which means that the Scottish airman will

be even more penalised than the English airman in this respect, being denied educational facilities such as he would get if he were not in the Services.
It is obvious that rank, and the pay attaching to it, decide whether the child will go to a particular type of school according to this system. I know that the Minister will say that exactly the same allowances are granted whether it be for an officer or airman; £150 is payable if the child is going to a boarding school at home and the family is abroad and that allowance of £150 is available for the airman as well as for the officer. It is obvious that the amount of pay which airmen have as compared with officers will decide whether the men will avail themselves of the educational facilities given. It means that if we want equality of opportunity, £150 may be enough for an officer, but not enough for an airman.
We can see from the Estimate what is happening. The children of the officers are being sent home to boarding-schools, while the children of the airmen are being educated either locally, or at home under the care of grandparents or guardians. We should look at this again. The Grigg Committee made various suggestions on education, but I do not think that it paid sufficient attention to the problem as it affects other ranks. It suggested the provision of secondary education "at selected places overseas." That is something that we must take into account if more families are being sent overseas. Is anything to be done about that?
The Grigg Committee also suggested that as well as increases in the allowances —and we welcome that provision, although not as it has worked out—arrangements should be made for
…the provision of special boarding facilities in connection with schools in the United Kingdom.
The idea was that certain local authorities should establish, near the schools, hostels of which the children of Service men should avail themselves.
That has already been done in connection with secondary education in certain parts of the country where there is a scattered population. It applies equally to Scotland as to England. The children live in the hostel accommodation and get their education in a centrally-sited


secondary school. There is no reason why this should not be looked at again. We might be able to link it up with the Royal Air Force itself if, somewhere within the new married accommodation, a hostel were established where service people could keep their eye on these Service children. I think that that is worth consideration.
Another point worries me. If the husband is serving, and his family is with him in a not very delectable spot overseas, there must be a tremendous temptation for the parents to try to scrape enough together to send the child to boarding school. Here let us be frank. Not all boarding schools are good boarding schools. Is any advice as to the quality of the boarding school given, or available to those anxious to take advantage of this scheme?
This question cropped up over the education allowances paid by the Ministry of Pensions when I was a member of the Ministry of Pensions Advisory Council. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Simmons) will bear me out when I say that we got the impression that money was being wasted through children being sent to boarding schools that did not provide the desired education. Now that we are again looking at this question of education with some urgency we might reconsider this aspect, and see whether guidance cannot be given in respect of those facilities.
A query I have on Subhead H is, I confess, purely a matter of curiosity—though not exactly idle curiosity. Under Subhead H.2 there appears a sum of £282,000 for "Other Allowances." The Explanatory Notes say that these include "Entertainment Allowance"; and that
This allowance is issued at varying rates to officers holding certain appointments to enable them to meet the cost of the necessary official entertainment attaching to the appointments
I wonder whether we could have a little more information about this because, as the Under-Secretary will know, it is not the only item for official entertainment covered in the Estimates. Who are these officers? What are their particular appointments, and what is the definition of "necessary official entertainment" which is to cost the country about £282,000?

9.6 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Airey Neave): On this Vote the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) has asked a number of questions about educational allowances, as he did in the previous debate on 5th March. He implied that in some way or another we were planning to provide for the children of officers on a different basis than for the children of airmen. I think I explained in the previous debate that that is not so. The choice of the parents is unfettered. To officers and airmen alike precisely the same opportunities and benefits are available. I seek now to explain that.
I said in the former debate that the figures we had in the Estimates represented the extent to which officers and airmen are expected to take advantage of the new rates. There is no fixed ceiling, but, if more officers or men than we expect accept the allowance, the expenditure will have to go up. Officers and men have the same allowance under the same conditions and the rates, including those for the privately boarded child, are those recommended by the Grigg Committee. There is no question of distinguishing between officers and airmen in this allowance. Serving men in comparable stations would be eligible for the same allowances and, now the allowances are available for technical and vocational training, I hope that more airmen will take advantage of them.
The hon. Member made other points of which I shall certainly take note. He mentioned the provision of hostels near schools. The position at the moment is that the Minister of Education has been, and still is, considering in conjunction with certain local authorities the question of the provision of extra boarding accommodation for children of Service parents and we hope that soon proposals might be forthcoming. The hon. Member made a point about the education of children abroad which I thought important. Strictly speaking, those amounts arise on other Votes, but the provision for the education of children in stations abroad is in fact rising substantially. The hon. Member will find that under Subhead C of Vote 9.

Mr. Ross: I think the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the point I was trying to make about educational allowances. It is all very well saying that officers


and men get the same allowance and so the opportunities are equal. That is like saying that everyone can dine at the Ritz; it is open to everyone provided he has the money. The addition of £100 to the salary of someone in a senior rank is entirely different in consequence from the addition of £150 to someone with the rank of corporal. It is when we make the addition sum that we get the result which enables us to work out whether or not there is equality of opportunity. Let us face it; there just is not. The figures demonstrate that.
I wonder if the Under-Secretary—if not now, perhaps at a later date—could give the number of airmen actually participating in the boarding school facilities of £150. I should think it is a very small number indeed.

Mr. Neave: I know the interest of the hon. Member in this point, and I certainly undertake to give him the information.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £109,200,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the pay, &amp;c., of the Air Force, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March. 1960.

Vote 2. Reserve and Auxiliary Services

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £1,139,900, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the reserve and auxiliary services (to a number not exceeding 188,400, all ranks, for the Royal Air Force Reserve, and 4,100, all ranks, for the Royal Auxiliary Air Force), which will come in course of payment during the year eliding on the 31st day of March, 1960.

9. I 1 p.m.

Mr. Ross: I put a quick question on Subhead F of this Vote. We are spending here £247,000 on the Royal Observer Corps, and that is an increase of £28,000. My concern is that the functions of this body are described as including
the measuring and reporting of radioactive 'fall-out' 
I should like to know how many people are so engaged, because, after all, this is a spare-time civilian body of people who are in R.A.F. uniform. How many are engaged in this quite important task, and to whom do they report?
I should have thought that the information which they received would be of

more value to the Home Office than to the Air Ministry, and since this is, I should have thought, a more or less continuing civil job which they are doing, it could have been organised in some other way than under the Air Estimates. It seems to be an increasing liability. I wonder whether the increase of £28,000 is related to this particular task. I should be very glad if we could have an answer on that point.

9.12 p.m.

Mr. Roy Mason: I want to discuss exactly the same point as that which has just been mentioned by my hon. Friend. The Under-Secretary of State for Air will recognise that this is repetition of a point which I raised in the debate on the Air Estimates, to which we never received any reply.
As my hon. Friend has just said, £28,000 extra has been allocated this year to members of the Royal Observer Corps, and £26,000 of that sum is given for grants, allowances and the National Insurance of spare-time officers and observers. I should, therefore, be much obliged if the hon. Gentleman could tell us a little more about the rôle of the Royal Observer Corps in manning these 1,500 radioactivity detector stations.
First, to what extent have these stations been built? Is the country now literally covered with these detectors, and what form will the stations take? I wonder about the form, because I have not seen one yet, but I should imagine that 1,500 stations are very difficult to hide, unless they are very small stations which perhaps need weekend maintenance only by part-time members of the Royal Observer Corps. We ought to have a little more information about them.
Precisely what is to be the rôle of the Royal Observer Corps when the stations are being manned, and what are the possibilities—I asked the Under-Secretary about this in the debate on the Air Estimates—of peace-time exercises in manning the 1,500 stations, and in assessing the fall-out that has taken place already over the country because of H-bomb and atom bomb tests, and which regions of the country have been more affected than others? I think that such exercises could be useful, and I do not see any reason, in view of the fact that the Royal Observer Corps is coming into civil defence, why we should not have them.
I have already spoken in the debate on the Army Estimates, and have been very pleased to see that the Territorial Army is now coming into civil defence. I am therefore also pleased to see that the Royal Observer Corps is now taking part, because I have always said that civil defence in a nuclear war will be a military operation. I am glad that we are now to see members of the Armed Forces responsible to Service Ministers gradually taking over that rôle, but so far very little information has been given to us. This is a good opportunity for the Minister, bearing in mind the fact that if we do not receive satisfactory replies, we shall have the opportunity of raising the matter once again before the Vote goes through.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. Neave: This matter was raised in last week's debate on the Estimates and I answered several questions put to me by the hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) at that time, though I agree that this was not one of them. As well as its traditional rôle of tracking low-flying aircraft, the Royal Observer Corps has the task of tracking and measuring radioactive fall-out in the event of air attack. On the point made by the hon. Member about exercises, the officers and others are part-time. I doubt whether it would be possible to organise a full-scale exercise so that all the personnel were present at the same time. I see difficulties in that, but I note the point. The Corps, being composed of part-time officers, also has no responsibility for the regular measurement, as a check, of radioactivity at levels with which the research bodies are concerned. The Corns reports in peace and war to Fighter Command.
The hon. Member asked whether the Corps could undertake measurements of radioactivity in peace. He asked this on a previous occasion. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister explained in his statement on 31st October, arrangements have been made for checking peace-time radioactivity in the air, water, soil, herbage, milk and food stuffs. The Royal Observer Corps has no part in these arrangements. Its rôle is essentially a war-time one, as my right hon. Friend explained in answer to questions which the hon. Member for Barnsley put to him. Its training is not directed to detecting radioactivity at the level with which research bodies are concerned. I

will take note of what the hon. Member has suggested, but this must be the present rôle of the Corps.

Mr. Mason: But are the stations completed? Have we now the 1,500 stations which the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Air told me in the past year it was intended to build? I see no reason why we should enlarge the difficulty of having a peace-time exercise. According to the Explanatory Notes, we already have 15,000 observers. I understand that the stations are bound to be small with possibly one person detecting at ground level. Therefore, we should need to use only one-tenth of those who are enrolled in the Corps. This suggestion is worthy of consideration. Will the hon. Gentleman give us some idea of the progress made in the building of the detector stations?

Mr. Neave: It would be necessary to man these stations twenty-four hours a day and it is not easy to achieve exactly what the hon. Member wants. We have most of these stations, but I should like notice of the question about the total number erected.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £1,139,900, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the reserve and auxiliary services (to a number not exceeding 188,400, all ranks, for the Royal Air Force Reserve, and 4,100, all ranks, for the Royal Auxiliary Air Force), which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Vote 7. Aircraft and Stores

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £213,850,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of aircraft and stores, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

9.20 p.m.

Mr. Ross: In a total Estimate of £490 million we have this Vote for £213 million. I wonder how realistic it is. Last year, there was a considerable churning up of the Estimates as presented, in the light of what eventually happened. Vote A for airframes was estimated to be £74 million, which upset quite a number of people when they considered it in relation to what was to be spent on guided missiles, but eventually we spent £86 million under that Vote.
Instead of spending £55 million on aero engines, we spent £48 million. It becomes a burden when we have arguments about Estimates and about the relative importance being placed on the traditional and modern rôle of the Royal Air Force as compared with the modern and coming guided weapons and missiles, and then we discover that things are so completely altered. For the same thing happened in relation to Subhead C, "Armament, Ammunition and Explosives", which includes guided missiles. We were told last year that we would spend £42 million, but we were out by about 25 per cent. and spent only £32 million.
Could we be told whether there is to be any churning up of policy within the Government during the coming year which will render these Estimates as unreliable as they were last year? It is important not only from the point of view of the Royal Air Force, but of industry. There is no Estimate that is of more importance to men employed in the aircraft industry. The widespread nature of this interest goes from the Isle of Wight, in the South, to an important place called Prestwick, in the North, where we make the Twin Pioneer; and I thank the Secretary of State for Air for giving us an extra four, which were welcomed in that part of Scotland.
We are entitled to ask the Minister whether or not there is now a settled policy, in the hope that the forecast of deliveries, which is all this is, is likely to be more accurate this year than it was last. We are threatened with an increase of £17 million, and that despite a decrease of £6¼ million in airframes and aero engines as compared with the original Estimate last year. It is nonsense to talk about a comparison, however, when we know that things were so completely changed.
There is one other point which worries me and that is under Subhead C, which is much more important than its title would make one believe. This is divided into two parts. The first concerns armament and the second deals with ammunition and explosives. Included in armament is ancillary equipment for guided missiles and under ammunition and explosives come the guided missiles themselves.
In view of the increasing development and importance of these missiles, it is time they were taken out of the general melange of ammunition and explosives and given a heading of their own. We would then get a far better idea of the balance of the new R.A.F. as between the traditional means of fighting and delivery as compared with the modern weapon systems. We talk of weapon systems and we are promised new ones. It would give us a much clearer picture if we could get these separate and apart, so that we would know exactly the balance of expenditure in relation to these matters.
There is an increase of about £1 million on Subhead F, mechanical transport vehicles and marine craft, an increase from £5½ million to £6½ million. I should welcome an explanation of how it is hoped to spend this additional £1 million and whether there has been any standardisation of the needs of the Services for mechanical transport vehicles. It may be difficult with specialised types of vehicles required on airfields, for instance, to get standardisation, but with general purpose vehicles we would get some economy by that means.
Can the hon. Gentleman give any explanation of the increased expenditure on marine craft? We were told in the Memorandum about the closing down of certain marine stations, and yet we are spending more money. That may be due to re-equipping new ocean weather ships, but I should be grateful for an explanation of this aspect of the matter and a reply to my criticism of the reliability of the Estimates.

9.26 p.m.

Mr. John Rankin: The total Vote is considerably increased, by about £20 million. At the same time, redundancy in Scotland is increasing. We have had a great struggle, which, in the long run, has proved unsuccessful, to keep open the Ministry of Supply factory in Dunbartonshire.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) mentioned Prestwick, and I agree with him that we have had some help in keeping the industry there going. I see that the amount for airframes is down and I assume that because of that there will be a general reduction in airframe production over the country as a whole. That is also


true of aero engines. I should like the Under-Secretary to refer to that and to give an assurance that Scotland is getting a fair crack of the whip in the manufacture of aero engines.
There has been a good deal of redundancy in the Rolls-Royce factories. It is a legitimate complaint that when the total Vote is going up, there is unfair distribution in that the amount of work for Scotland seems to be decreasing. Glasgow is the most heavily hit city in the United Kingdom in respect of unemployment. And unemployment in Scotland is still increasing, even though in the United Kingdom it is decreasing.
This is the Vote which absorbs the greatest single sum of money and concerns industries in which Scotland is interested. I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to assure us that Scotland's position will be at least maintained, and that he can say something about the manufacture of aircraft at Prestwick and assure us that our position there will improve and not deteriorate.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Neave: The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) and other hon. Members will recognise the difficulty involved in deciding the form of this Vote, which he criticised. The difficulty arises from the numerous imponderables involved in the development of new weapons and aircraft. The changes in the Vote were due not to changes in policy, but, very often, to shortfalls in deliveries, and in some cases to accelerated deliveries. This Vote is always liable to large fluctuations. I shall have something to say about what the hon. Member mentioned in regard to guided weapons.
Turning to the question of our responsibility to the aircraft industry, I would point out that my right hon. Friend's first responsibility is not to the aircraft industry as such; that is primarily the concern of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply. Nonetheless, the Royal Air Force is the industry's largest single customer, and we are well aware that a thriving and healthy manufacturing organisation is of prime importance to the future of the Service.
We assist in the promotion of sales in many ways. In the normal course of their duties air attachés keep other countries informed of the latest developments in

British aircraft and equipment; we have special arrangements with many of our Allies to facilitate the supply of Royal Air Force type equipment, and showing the flag in various countries, as my right hon. Friend pointed out in the Air Estimates debate, evokes the greatest interest in the products of British industry. I accept what hon. Members have said about the matter, but there is nothing further that I can say now about my right hon. Friend's connection with and responsibility for it.
The hon. Member referred particularly to Subhead C, and asked whether the Vote could be split up so that recent deliveries of guided weapons could be shown. That point will no doubt be taken note of, but I cannot say anything further about it at the moment, except that there is an increase in the estimated expenditure.
As for motor transport standardisation, much work continues to be done on the standardisation of mechanical transport vehicles and components which are common to the three Services. The N.A.T.O. Military Agency for Standardisation is also active in this connection, to ensure the greatest possible degree of uniformity with our N.A.T.O. Allies, but we should bear in mind that the Royal Air Force needs a wide variety of specialised vehicles for its many purposes.
I was also asked about marine craft. We did not buy any new marine craft last year, but we are providing this year for the purchase of an ocean weathership and the conversion of two others. Last year we provided for the purchase of only one.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £213,850,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of aircraft and stores, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Vote 8. Works and Lands

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeeding £30,550,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of works and lands, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

9.34 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas: A number of Royal Air Force stations surround my constituency, and I wish to


refer to the station at Hemswell. Subhead G refers to rents of accommodation hired for use as married quarters, and I should like to know what is the position at Hemswell, where there is a serious shortage of married quarters both for officers and airmen. One of the ways of solving the problem is by building, but that question comes under another Vote.
While these quarters are being built, can anything be done to help by renting accommodation for use as married quarters? I know that this would not be easy in a scattered country area, but I should like an assurance that this matter will be examined again to see whether something can be done to help those officers and airmen who are on the waiting list for quarters.

9.36 p.m.

Mr. Ross: This Vote shows a decrease of nearly £1 million. I am interested in what is promised about married quarters and accommodation for personnel. If we are to keep the new Regulars, especially the unmarried men, we must pay particular attention to accommodation for them and also to the question of accommodation when they become married. We are told that we shall start new construction of married quarters which will cost over £7 million and accommodation for personnel amounting to £10 million, which looks wonderful until we examine what has already happened.
I wish to know whether it was because of a change in policy, or whether other aspects of policy caused an interference with the plans for last year. Then we were told that we should start new schemes for married quarters costing £6½ million. We started new schemes costing £2½ million. We were proposing in the first year to spend £1,300,000 on this and we actually spent only £600,000. That does not augur well for what is promised in the Estimates this year and in the Explanatory Statement.
It is difficult—in fact, looking at the Estimates as they are now presented—at Subhead A, "New works, Additions and Alterations"—it is impossible to see that we shall spend nearly £26 million compared with the figure of £30 million for last year. When we look at what has happened in the revised Estimate we realise that the performance did not

reach the proposed standard. I hope that we shall not be told that we had a wet summer after a hard spring, because the weather does not make all that difference. Our performance amounted to only 50 per cent. If the same thing happens this year—I do not suppose that we shall have any better summer than last year; it is unwise to bank on it—it would be unwise to suggest that the weather be advanced as an alibi for failing to live up to expectations. In any case, the Air Ministry is responsible for the Meteorological Service. I stress this matter because it is important.
As the Estimates are presented to the Committee we get no indication that we have failed so lamentably. For workshops and technical buildings there is a total estimate of £14 million for new services started. We are to spend £2 million on that new work, which would seem to reveal that there is more urgency about the provision of workshops and technical buildings than what is proposed for married quarters. Of the £7 million which is the total estimate of the value of the work we are to start, we are to spend £500,000 in the coming year. It will take a long time to finish if the progress is not any better than it was last year.
I think that the scrutiny of these Estimates is hampered by their form. We are given this year the total estimate of what these works will cost by the time they are finished, which is £7 million, but next year that will be lost sight of. We shall have no indication of the progress that is being made, or whether or not a change in policy has scrapped half of that. We shall be given only the sum that is to be voted in respect of works that were started earlier.
I suggest that we ought to have an aggregate total estimate of work started in previous years and still under construction and that we should have notes of any revised total estimates on these works, because it is amazing how total estimates have a habit of rising and in this particular form of Estimates we have no form of presenting it at all. Then we get the Comptroller and Auditor General breaking it to us completely unexpectedly regarding certain Departments. But let us give the Air Ministry the benefit of the doubt and say that we are surprised when a mistake of a substantial nature is made. The House


should be kept informed of what is happening, what has been completed and what is still to be done.
I am sure that the Under-Secretary will say that he cannot give us details about the works which are going on in connection with the Air Ministry and Royal Air Force because of defence considerations. But surely that does not apply to married quarters. We should be given much more information about them. We should be told what the total estimate is, what Vote is required in the current year, and the estimate that will be required for future years. We shall then get an idea of what work is in progress and what work has been completed. If the hon. Gentleman can tell us about the works that are proposed and have been abandoned he may help us to get over certain difficulties in dealing with the Supplementary Estimates.
Vote 1 refers to the construction and use of houses by the United States military forces in the United Kingdom. I should like to know exactly how much is included in new works started and in payment for works already started that is applicable to this particular item.
I notice that in appropriations-in-aid £1¼ million is being paid back in relation to what has already been provided. I think that to get proper Estimates of what is being done in respect of our own forces we should have that information. From the point of view of the morale and spirit of the Service, this is where we can best spend money and spend it urgently. I certainly hope that the failure of last year will have goaded the Ministry to have achieved something much better this year. We cannot be complacent about what happened last year and it was not the first year in which this accomplishment was not quite up to expectations. If we can have a better idea of what is to happen this year the Committee will be more likely to look with favour upon the present Estimates.
Under Subhead F of Vote 8, I notice that we have "Purchases of Land and Buildings", exactly the same as last year —£500,000. Are we to get a Supplementary Estimate for this? The Under-Secretary should be made aware of the fact that there is going through the House at present a Bill relating to this very matter, which will increase the cost of buildings in relation to compensation

when they are required for this purpose. It might well be that there should have been intelligent anticipation here. We might be told now whether there is to be an increase in respect of this matter.

9.46 p.m.

Mr. F. H. Hayman: I fear that any reply which my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) gets will be hardly worth the paper it is written on, so to speak. It is not that I distrust the integrity of the Under-Secretary of State for Air but that I have no respect for the calculations of his Ministry.
I base that statement on the fact that four or five years ago the Ministry was anxious to build 230 houses near St. Mawgan Aerodrome in Cornwall. The houses would have been miles from anywhere and would have created confusion in the transport of children to school because some were outside the limit of free transport and some were within it. The county planning authority and the local education authority objected. The Newquay Urban District Council objected also, but the Ministry said, "No, we must go on." Fortunately for us in Cornwall, there came one of the financial crises that have happened under this Government, and the job was postponed.
The Ministry is now able to house all the staff of St. Mawgan at the adjoining aerodrome at St. Eval, which has now been abandoned. A school which was built at St. Eval by the local education authority at great cost to house the children of the personnel at St. Eval will now be used for the children of the men serving at St. Mawgan. This may seem confusing to the Committee and it has certainly been confusing to us in Cornwall. It means that we distrust anything that the Minister says about housing by the Air Ministry. We were able to delay the Ministry long enough by our protests to prevent it making a very big mistake.

9.48 p.m.

Mr. Neave: We attach great importance to this question of married quarters and to building generally. Let me deal with the point of the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) about the form of the Estimate for Vote 8. This form applies equally to the works Votes of all the Service Departments and it would be desirable to maintain common form for these Estimates. That is


not to say that there is not something in what the hon. Gentleman says, so I will look into the matter and see whether any improvement in presentation is possible. I will consult my right hon. Friends about it.
It is difficult to answer in very great detail the hon. Gentleman's comments on the position that arose last year. The reason for the under-spending was mainly changes in deployment arising from the introduction of weapons, delays in building projects, and particularly the political difficulties which occurred in Cyprus and in the Middle East. They were reasons why the building programme did not proceed. It is our intention to do as much building as we can afford and as quickly as possible. I do not think the lion. Gentleman should altogether ignore the fact, whatever the responsibility of my right hon. Friend may be for the Meteorological Office, that last year there was bad weather which affected the building programme.

Mr. Ross: Is there a better weather forecast with these Estimates?

The Deputy-Chairman: rose—

Mr. Neave: I beg your pardon, Sir Gordon. I was interrupted at that point upon a matter of weather forecasts. I should not like to sit down without answering the point about his constituency mentioned by the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas). He mentioned a station in his constituency, or just outside it. I cannot go into much detail about the married quarters programme, for this station, but I can say that we have already rather more than one-third of the married quarters which are likely to be needed in the long-term. During the next two years, new building and conversion of existing buildings should increase the proportion to at least two-thirds and we shall take as many hirings as we can in the vicinity of this station until the number of married quarters is sufficient for our needs.

Question put and agreed to

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £30,550,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of works and lands, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

Vote 9. Miscellaneous Effective Services

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £4,040,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of miscellaneous effective services, including certain grants in aid and a subscription to the World Meteorological Organisation, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

9.46 p.m.

Mr. Ross: I notice in Subhead G that in compensation to members of the public we are providing £240,000 this year as against £120,000 last year. This is an Estimate which
Provides for compensation payments in respect of injury to the person, or damage to the property, of third parties arising from aircraft, road traffic and miscellaneous accidents".
We are actually doubling this provision. Can the Under-Secretary justify this pessimism that there will be more accidents?
In his Memorandum, the Secretary of State made it clear that the number of accidents over the past year had been the lowest ever. We were all gratified by that. Now, I am shocked by this pessimism and wonder what is the reason for it. Alternatively, is it a sudden access of generosity that because there are so many fewer accidents the payments are being doubled?
Whatever the reason, if it were generosity in relation to the possibility of accidents among civilians, there might have been a slight carry-over in the treatment of men in the Air Force. When we look at the compensation for Air Force personnel and civilian staff, we see that the provisional compensation is reduced from £24,000 last year to only £4,000 This year. Can the hon. Gentleman, in the one case, justify his pessimism and, in the other case, justify his optimism, or in the one case, as it may be, generosity and in the other case his mean-heartedness towards Air Force personnel who are to be compensated.
for unavoidable loss of, or damage to, uniform, personal equipment, etc., incurred on service …"?
We will be very interested to have the hon. Gentleman's answer.

Mr. Rankin: I notice that under Subhead U the Secretary of State has decided to sustain the welfare work of the R.A.F.


in Germany by setting aside £30,000 for the Malcolm Clubs. I also notice that in the Supplementary Estimate he was making provision for the rest of this year to the extent of £8,500. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on this provision which he is making for these clubs. It proves that when a Minister says "No", he does not always mean "No" and that a little judicious advice applied in the proper way is something to which a Minister of the quality of the Secretary of State for Air will respond. I am sure that an both sides we hope that when we come to the Estimates a year hence the provision will still be there for the Malcolm Clubs.

Mr. Neave: In answer to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), the increase under Subhead G of Vote 9 in compensation for losses and damage is due in the main to compensation payments in Germany falling as a charge on United Kingdom funds instead of being borne, as in the past, by German support costs. That is the main reason. In addition, it is not so much a question of pessimism about future accidents as of payment for past accidents. Fairly heavy payments are expected to be made as a result of the Vulcan crash near Detroit, which unfortunately took place recently.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) raised the question of Malcolm Clubs. As the Committee knows, we decided to take no steps as a preliminary to the closing down of the clubs before the end of the year in the hope that during this period Malcolm Clubs will be able materially to improve their financial position. I thank the hon. Member for what he said about my right hon. Friend's attitude.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £4,040,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of miscellaneous effective services, including certain grants in aid and a subscription to the

World Meteorological Organisation, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

VOTE 11. ADDITIONAL MARRIED QUARTERS

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of certain additional married quarters, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960.

AIR SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1958–59

Resolved,
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £3,750,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1959, for expenditure beyond the sum already provided in the grants for Air Services for the year.

SCHEDULE



Sums not exceeding



Supply Grants
Appropriations in Aid


Vote
£
£


1. Pay, &amp;c, of the Air Force.
8,050,000
*—5,250,000


3. Air Ministry (Revised Sum)
510,000
*—70,000


4. Civilians at Outstations (Revised Sum)
2,620,000
*½220,000


5. Movements
1,100,000
680,000


6. Supplies
Cr.900,000
970,000


7. Aircraft and Stores
Cr.6,200,000
*—80,000


8. Works and Lands
Cr. 1,200,000
*—3,100,000


9. Miscellaneous Effective Services.
Cr.660,000
*—210,000


10. Non-effective Services
430,000
30,000


Total, Air (Supplementary), 1958–59
£3,750,000
*—7,250,000


*Deficit.

Resolutions to be reported.

Report to be received Tomorrow;

Committee to sit again Tomorrow.

TRURO CATHEDRAL

9.58 p.m.

Sir Peter Agnew: I beg to move,
That the Truro Cathedral Measure, 1959, passed by the National Assembly of the Church of England, be presented to Her Majesty for Her Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament.
The diocese to which this Measure relates is not one of the ancient dioceses of the Church of England. It was revived or recreated, with the boundaries coterminous with the County of Cornwall, as late as 1877 and its constitution was regulated by an Act of 1878 followed by an Act of 1887. The diocese, in its setup, has two unusual features. First, the bishop is allowed to be his own dean. Up to the present, that practice has always been followed. It has now been found possible financially, however, for a separate dean to be appointed and maintained.
That arrangement is, of course, advantageous to the bishop, who is able to give up that side of his present duties, and it is also advantageous to the see of Truro itself that the arrangement under which there has been a doubling of duties should be ended and the cathedral looked after by its own officer. Under this Measure there will be a separate dean. There is already a chapter. The constitution of Truro Cathedral in that respect will be brought into line with all the other cathedrals of the Church of England, which possess a dean and chapter.
The second feature is that when Truro Cathedral was built in the last century it was built on the site of, and indeed it swallowed up and enveloped, an existing parish church with a parish round it. That was the Parish of St. Mary. Today a part of the cathedral building is called St. Mary's Aisle and has the status of a parish church. Up to the present time the sub-dean has been the rector of the parish church. Under this Measure the office of rector will be taken away from the sub-dean and transferred to the new dean to be appointed.
As soon as the constitution for the cathedral conies into force the office of sub-dean will be abolished, and the dean

therefore will have the full authority that other deans have over the whole of the cathedral building, although in the case of St. Mary's Aisle it will be in his capacity as rector.
There are only two other matters that I need mention, both of a minor character, but important in detail. First, up to the present time, the bishop has been the patron of the Parish of St. Mary. Under the Measure that patronage will be transferred, and necessarily so, to the Crown, because the appointment of dean will be made by Her Majesty.
The second matter relates to the cathedral buildings and their precincts. When Truro diocese was established there was no dean and chapter, and, therefore, the cathedral and its precincts were vested in the bishop. Now that there is to be a dean and chapter that possession is being taken away from the bishop and being vested in the dean and chapter, as is the case with all other cathedrals that possess a dean and chapter.
This Measure passed through the Church Assembly without a vote at any stage and it has received a favourable report from the Ecclesiastical Committee.

10.3 p.m.

Mr. F. H. Hayman: I rise to second the Motion proposed by the hon. Member for Worcerstershire, South (Sir P. Agnew). I do so with sonic feeling, because I was born in Truro and lived and worked there for the first twenty-five years of my life.
The hon. Baronet has said that Truro is one of the modern dioceses of this country, but I remind the House that Cornwall was a Celtic country originally and was christianised long before St. Augustine came to Kent. Therefore, Truro as some very old connections with the Church in this country.
The first cathedral of Cornwall was at St. Germans and was erected by King Athelstan in A.D. 936. That diocese lasted for a century, when it was incorporated with Exeter. I have said that Cornwall was a Celtic country. From Truro on the south coast, to which the River Fal is navigable, up to Crantock on the north coast, there was one of the ancient Celtic highways. Therefore, this site at Truro is very much linked with the history of my county.
Truro was granted its first charter in 1180, almost eight centuries ago. It is interesting to remember that at Michaelmas in 1259 Bishop Branscombe of Exeter consecrated the Chapel of St. Mary at Truro. That chapel eventually became the parish church of St. Mary and, as the hon. Baronet has just said, the south aisle of the cathedral will, by this Measure, be known as St. Mary's Aisle, and so carry on this centuries-old parish.
I feel somewhat nostalgic about this, because the present Truro Cathedral was erected in the twenty-five years before the First World War. During the latter part of that period I was a youngster, and was able to watch the completion of the towers at the west end of the cathedral. This is already a historic occasion, but it is also historic in the sense that one of the most famous Parliamentarians of this House, Sir John Elliot, lived in St. Germans, where the first cathedral of Cornwall was erected. It is because of these things that I ask the indulgence of the House for having dwelt on this aspect.

10.7 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Marshall: Having had the privilege of serving in the House with my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir P. Agnew) when he represented a Cornish division for so very long, I am extremely glad to have heard him move this Motion. As a licensed lay reader of the diocese, I am only too happy to support the Motion.

10.8 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Howard (St. Ives): I, too, would like to support the Motion so ably proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir P. Agnew). Our bishop in Cornwall is a very wonderful man, and anything that can be done to make his task less onerous by appointing a dean will be a most excellent thing to do.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Truro Cathedral Measure, 1959, passed by the National Assembly of the Church of England, be presented to Her Majesty for Her Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament.

NATIONAL THEATRE

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Brooman-White.]

10.8 p.m.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Ten years ago yesterday, on 9th March, 1949, a Bill allocating up to £1 million of public money towards the building of a National Theatre received the Royal Assent. As those of us who were in the House at the time will remember, the Bill was passed with the enthusiastic support of members of all parties. We felt that, at long last, the stigma under which this country has suffered for so long, of not having such an institution, was about to be removed. We realised that the work could not be started for some little while; that there was a great need for housing, for generating stations, for factories, and for making good war damage. Nevertheless, I do not think that any of us then thought for a moment that ten years would pass and that nothing had been done. So far as I can see, nothing is intended to be done for a long time yet.
It is for that reason that I want, quite briefly, to ask whether the Economic Secretary can let us know the Government's intentions in this matter. This subject was referred to by the hon. Member for Conway (Mr. P. Thomas) on 23rd January last, when he moved his Motion on the needs of the arts. In the same debate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Sir H. Carr) also raised the matter, if I may say so, in a most persuasive way. Unfortunately, when the Financial Secretary replied he did not refer at all to the National Theatre. I may be wrong, but I am of the opinion that he deliberately avoided answering the questions put to him.
I ask the Economic Secretary tonight why that was. This House, the public, the London County Council and the Joint Council of the National Theatre and the Old Vic are entitled to know what the intentions of the Government are. We all have a right to know, seeing that it is ten years since the Bill became an Act.
The Act of 1949 was no ordinary enabling Act giving the Treasury power to advance up to £1 million for the


building of a National Theatre anywhere. It was the sequel to a bargain which has been come to by the trustees of the National Memorial Theatre Fund and the London County Council under which about an acre in Cromwell Gardens was exchanged for little more than an acre belonging to London County Council in Lambeth on a site quite near to the Festival Hall.
That transaction, if my recollection is correct, would not have taken place if the London County Council had not been assured that money would be forthcoming for the building of a theatre. The then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the late Sir Stafford Cripps, when appealed to, very readily agreed to advance the money so that at long last we might see, at no distant date, a National Theatre arising in the centre of London.
At that time, as far as my memory serves me, architects had been appointed and I believe that plans had been drawn. It was to be a very fine structure, comprising two theatres, one capable of holding 1,200 and another 500, with workshops and room for developments of various kinds. It was expected, in fact decided, that as part of the scheme repertory companies would go out to various parts of the country. Not only would Shakespeare be played, but also works of other dramatists of note, including Bernard Shaw and other well-known dramatists, as well as younger playwrights as they came along.
The Queen Mother in, I think, 1951, laid the foundation stone and there was then every expectation that at long last we were to get this theatre. When we debated the needs of the arts, on 23rd January, the Financial Secretary announced additional help from the Treasury towards opera, ballet, the buying of pictures and the like, but he said nothing about finding money for the National Theatre. Although £1 million would have been adequate ten years ago, I doubt whether twice that sum would not now have to be found to build this theatre. If much more time is allowed to elapse, I am sure that not even £2 million would cover the cost.
Some time ago, the Treasury, I understand, invited the Arts Council to report on the housing of the Arts. I believe that that Report is now in the hands of the

Treasury. I ask the Economic Secretary whether he will be good enough to let us know if that is so, and when we may expect its publication. I do not know, but I have been told that the Arts Council, in that Report, has given very high priority to the building of a National Theatre. If that is so, I think we ought to know, and also ought to know why it is that the Treasury has paid no attention to that suggestion.
I would also like to ask the Economic Secretary whether he will tell us what is the attitude of the L.C.C. to this long delay? Has the L.C.C. made any representations? I saw in The Times a week or ten days ago a letter from Sir Donald Wolfit, the actor, who suggested, that under the General Powers Bill which London County Council is now promoting, the County Council proposes, I think under Clause 21, to make the site which had been dedicated to a National Theatre an open space. I have looked at the Bill, and my reading of the Clause is not quite the same as that of Sir Donald Wolfit, but I think that the public needs some reassurance on this matter. Perhaps the Economic Secretary this evening, or, if not, at some future time, could let us know just what the position is.

Mr. George Jeger: The Times

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I was, of course, aware of what my hon. Friend has been good enough to say. Nevertheless, there is some disquiet in the public mind, and I think that on this occasion, as we are dealing with this matter, it would be a good thing if the Economic Secretary could reassure us on this point.
This country is almost unique amongst civilised nations in that it has no National Theatre. This is the country that gave birth to Shakespeare, the greatest playwright the world has ever seen, and yet we are one of the few civilised nations which has not got a National Theatre. For over fifty years, efforts have been made to collect funds and to interest people in such a project. As far back as 1903, those interested began to collect


the money and to try to interest people in such a venture. It was hoped, on the tercentenary of Shakespeare's death, in 1916, to have collected money and have the building finished and to open such a theatre, but war came in 1914 and the scheme fell through. As I have already said, at long last, in 1949, we thought that we would see a National Theatre materialise, but here we are, in 1959, no nearer to the culmination of our hopes.
I hope that the Economic Secretary tonight will not simply tell us that we have the Old Vic. The Old Vic is a very fine institution, but it is no substitute for a National Theatre, and I assume that in years to come—it may be ten, or even twenty years—the Old Vic will have to come down to make room for street widening. What we want is a National Theatre in the fullest sense of the word, and I hope that tonight the Economic Secretary will be able to reassure us and to tell us that at long last the Treasury does mean to allow a start to be made on this great memorial to the greatest playwright, William Shakespeare.

10.19 p.m.

Mr. Roy Mason: I rise only to reinforce the plea so ably made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall). As the Economic Secretary to the Treasury knows, I have questioned the Chancellor on the increase of moneys to the Arts Council purposely to resurrect the live theatre, and as I see the possibility of a National Theatre helping in this regard, I should like to make some comments about it. It seems to me an exciting possibility that once we had a National Theatre it would help to keep the provincial theatres going. It would keep them alive, feed them with talent and with shows, after they had served a useful period in the City.
I am sorry to think that ten years after acquiring the land we are still waiting for the National Theatre to be erected. Many of our small repertory theatres are closing down—in Halifax, Rotherham, Doncaster and Barnsley. In many of the provincial towns and particularly in the heart of the Provinces, in places like York, we are losing the repertory theatre. The erection of a National Theatre may help to stave off that decline. The new medium of television has come into the fore and we see our small live theatres

dying. Many people who were unknown before are coming on television to act 'before, enormous audiences. Artists have never been able to command such a massive array of people as they do now by means of television. Yet these artists are not adequately trained. The training grounds are all on the decline. The standards of television will likewise decline unless we help in this matter.
In trying to reinforce my right hon. Friend's plea, I express the hope that the Economic Secretary will try to give the House some hope, first, that the National Theatre is a possibility and, secondly, that we shall eventually see one in the City and thereby help maintain the cultural standards in the Provinces and help television as well.

10.22 p.m.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. F. J. Erroll): I am sure that the House would not wish me to take up the short time left to me in going over the long history of the National Theatre project, particularly as the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) has sketched it in fully and adequately. The facts are particularly well known to the right hon. Gentleman because, as he pointed out to the House, it was he who introduced in the House the Bill which became the National Theatre Act, 1949.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I did not mention that.

Mr. Erroll: I thought that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned his connection with the matter. It is so well known that I felt entitled to refer to it.
The Government have been accused of some delay in carrying out the intentions of the National Theatre Act, but the delay really began with the right hon. Gentleman himself. Quite understandably, he raised great expectations when he introduced the Second Reading of the National Theatre Bill on 21st January, 1949. I am sure that at the time his intentions were of the best, but he was surely quite right, as events have subsequently proved, to add these words very near the end of his speech:
I should perhaps utter a word of warning as to when this project may begin to mature. It is quite obvious to the Government that it will be some little time before the building can be started."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st January, 1949; Vol. 460, c. 442.]


The National Theatre was in fact no further forward when the right hon. Gentleman went out of office towards the end of 1951.
At the very best it had been a hope, a wish, and if this was not such a non-controversial evening, I should be tempted to say that it was perhaps hardly fair to get the credit for the Bill when right hon. Gentlemen opposite must have known that they would not be able to build the theatre for some years. As he right hon. Gentleman pointed out, here were other priorities which had to rank ahead of a national theatre—power stations and other forms of construction. That must have been well-known in 1949 when the Bill, nevertheless, was promoted.
I should like to turn from the early years to the more recent history of the project. In July last year my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer received a distinguished deputation representative of the National Theatre Committee and the Arts Council. Two important facts came to light in the discussion which then took place. The first was that the capital cost of the National Theatre building was likely to be as much as £1¾ million. The second fact was that it would need a continuing annual subsidy which might be as much as £300,000 per annum but which would, even if not as much as that, at any rate be very considerable.
I must tell the House that following this discussion my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer felt obliged to write to Lord Chandos, who, incidentally, headed the deputation, saying that he could not hold out any hope that we should in the near future be able to make a beginning on the expenditure of nearly £2 million for the National Theatre. As he pointed out, it was a big sum, and a substantial annual subsidy would be required in addition. My right hon. Friend, in his letter, added that the Arts Council was making an inquiry into the housing of the arts at the request of his predecessor, and he hoped that the report which the Arts Council was preparing would indicate priorities amongst the various projects for cultural buildings, a al he said that this would give an opportunity for considering the long-term prospects of the National Theatre against the background of a number of competing claims.
I can now carry the story one stage further by telling the House, and particularly the right hon. Gentleman, that the Arts Council has decided to prepare its report on the housing of the Arts in four separate sections, namely, London, the English provinces, Scotland and Wales. Three sections, namely those dealing with London, Scotland and Wales, have now reached my right hon. Friend from the Arts Council. I understand that it is the intention of the Council to publish the report shortly, but as it is a report of the Council and not a Government report, it is for the Council to decide on the exact time when the sections are published.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: May I interrupt the Minister? I believe from what we were told on 23rd January that the part of the report dealing with Scotland is already being implemented. Why not London?

Mr. Erroll: I was dealing with publication. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that, as far as I know, there is no particular cause for delay in publication. It is a matter of checking through the scripts, and perhaps tidying up certain passages, and then there will be the usual processes of printing, so that the sections should be expected shortly and will be generally available. The section on the English provinces will follow later in the year, and there will then be an opportunity of public discussion on the four sections as a whole. I regret that I cannot answer the right hon. Gentleman on his point about the supposed implementation of the Scottish section, as that is a new point to me.
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor will give careful consideration to the report wherever it concerns the Government. He will, of course, want to consider the sections together, which I am sure the House would agree is the right course, so that the demands of the country as a whole can be seen and judged in balance. This is a point which I hope will appeal to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason), in view of the remarks he made during his brief intervention.
In the short time left to me I do not want to anticipate my right hon. Friend's consideration of the report on the housing of the Arts or even to discuss its contents


before the Arts Council has had time to publish it. However, it may help the House if I mention one or two points which are bound to be in the mind of the Chancellor in considering any recommedation about the National Theatre.
First, we want to be satisfied that there is general acceptance for the concept of building a National Theatre. There are those who argue, both in this House and elsewhere, that the money needed for it would be better spent elsewhere. Secondly, it has been suggested that drama in the provinces deserves a higher priority, especially if the National Theatre would need a large annual subvention. Of that, there is little doubt.
A great deal has been achieved by the existing British theatre since the war on modest rates of subsidy. Arts Council expenditure on drama in 1957–58 was some £75,000. We would all want to pay tribute to all those in the British theatre, and also in the Arts Council, who have made possible so much at such modest cost to the taxpayer. I have in mind not only the great achievements of our nationally-known theatres, such as Stratford and the Old Vic, but also the repertory companies up and down the country which struggle, year in year out, to maintain our theatrical tradition and to preserve and improve their standards. To return to the National Theatre, however, it seems reasonable in considering any annual subsidy which would be needed for it to bear in mind the present figure of £75,000 for drama as a whole, which I have just mentioned.
At the time of the closure of the St. James's Theatre, there were suggestions that money could be better spent preserving existing theatres than in building new ones.

Mr. G. Jeger: Mr. G. Jeger indicated dissent.

Mr. Erroll: The hon. Member for Goole (Mr. G. Jeger) shakes his head, but I feel that it would be wrong to ignore the suggestions that were then made and which should be taken into account before a decision is arrived at.

Mr. Jeger: Why I was shaking my head concerning the St. James's Theatre

was that everyone who knew anything about the theatre knew that it was obsolete and could not be renovated, and that it would have to be completely gutted and rebuilt.

Mr. Erroll: Whether or not the suggestions that were made were valid, the fact remains—and everybody must agree with this—that the National Theatre would tend to compete to some extent for audiences with the commercial theatre of London.
The right hon. Member for Colne Valley referred to Clause 21 of the London County Council General Powers Bill. As I understand the matter, the Clause will not in any way restrict the option which at present exists on the site but will, in fact, probably make it simpler and more effective. I have had only a few minutes in which to obtain this information. If what I have said needs modification or qualification, I will, of course, inform the House; but that is as I understand it at the moment.
Finally, I must make the point that the National Theatre is an expensive project. A large capital sum is needed. What would make it particularly difficult for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to proceed would be the need from the outset for a large annual subsidy, which would be likely to grow rapidly. I do not want to paint too black a picture. We all hope that it may be possible to find a way out of these difficulties.
My right hon. Friend will, as I have said, be considering the matter closely now that he has received the London section of the report by the Arts Council on the housing of the Arts. Moreover, he can look forward soon to receiving the Provincial section, perhaps with some indication of priorities as between one part of the United Kingdom and another. The right hon. Member for Colne Valley, who introduced this debate and who is experienced in these matters, will understand that I cannot go further tonight.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-six minutes to Eleven o'clock.